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“I can and will do anything that is just,” Marcus 
answered. 


FOR THE CHILDREN'S HOUR SERIES 


HERO STORIES 


BY 


CAROLYN SHERWIN BAILEY 

Author of 


“For the Children’s Hour,” “Firelight Stories,” “Stories 
Children Need,” “For the Story Teller,” 

“Tell Me Another Story,” etc. 


ILLUSTRATED BY 

FREDERICK KNOWLES 


MILTON BRADLEY COMPANY 

SPRINGFIELD, MASSACHUSETTS 
1919 


Copyright 1919 

By MILTON BRADLEY COMPANY 
Springfield, Massachusetts 



CONTENTS 


The Boy Who Loved Justice, Marcus Aurelius 7 

The Boy Who Could Give Up, William the Conqueror. . 14 

The Man Who Obeyed the King, Robin Hood 20 

The Little Poor Man, Francis of Assisi 25 

The Shepherdess Whose Dream Came True, 

Jeanne D’Arc 35 

The Boy Who Conquered Fire, Palissy 46 

The Boy Who Trusted His Father, Walter Tell 56 

The Boy Who Could Not Be Bribed, A Story About the 

Duke of Wellington 60 

The Girl Who Saved Her Father, Prascovia 64 

The Boy Who Liked Geography, Christopher Columbus.. 73 
The Man Who Captured Lightning, Benjamin Franklin ... 79 

The Boy Who Was True, George Washington 85 

Paul Revere’s Ride 93 

The Log Cabin Boy, Abraham Lincoln 100 

Barbara Frietchie 108 

The Girl Who Wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher 

Stowe 112 

The Blue and The Gray 119 

The Boy Who Wanted to Be a Sculptor, Antonio Canova.122 

The Village Blacksmith 128 

The Girl Who Liked to Play Nurse, Florence Nightingale - 131 

Apple Seed John 139 

The Girl Who Was a Loving Sister, Louisa M. Alcott ...144 

The Boy from the Hatter’s Shop, Peter Cooper 152 

A Boy Who Wanted to Learn, Booker T. Washington.. . 159 
The Girl Who Worked Hardest to Learn, Helen Keller 168 
The Boy Who Was a Wizard, Thomas Alva Edison 177 

































Hero Stories 


THE BOY WHO LOVED JUSTICE 

MARCUS AURELIUS OF ROME 

It was our first century, A. D., and the 
birthday of Marcus Verus, a boy of old 
Rome. 

The Roman lad and his mother stood 
in the courtyard of their home. From the 
living room of the house where Marcus and 
his little sister, Annia of thirteen, lived there 
came the busy hum of the maids’ spinning 
wheels. The white wool from the sheep 
that pastured on the green hills of Rome 
was to be made into soft cloth in this care- 
ful household. Yet Marcus was a boy 
of riches and of honor, a magistrate of 
the city while still in his teens, and a 
relative of the great Emperor Hadrian of 
Rome. 


7 


8 THE BOY WHO LOVED JUSTICE 

A band of burnished gold held back the 
straight dark hair from Marcus’ forehead. 
He had put aside the coarse mantle that he 
wore at the hard school of the Stoics and 
in its place he wore a holiday tunic of white 
wool. It scarcely reached his knees and 
showed his well built frame and tough, sun 
burned skin. Marcus could play ball as 
well as a boy of to-day. He was walking 
home from a game of ball on one of the 
grassy plains outside the city the year 
before when runners met him bearing the 
news that he had been chosen as a magis- 
trate to sit in the courts of law with the 
men of Rome. Marcus, though a boy and 
a ruler, knew what justice was and how to 
dispense it ! 

His mother put her hand on his shoulder, 
and he looked up into her sweet face. 
Lucilla, the mother of Marcus, was very 
like a mother of to-day. She wore the long 
tunic and outer robe that was the fashion 
in this long ago time, but her face was full 
of love and pride as she smiled down at 
her son. 


THE BOY WHO LOVED JUSTICE 9 

“How are you going to celebrate your 
birthday, my Marcus?” she asked. 

For a moment the lad was silent. He 
was thinking of the many happy birthdays 
of his past. Every one loved to give in 
those days of long ago, on New Year’s day, 
on the feast days, and on the day when 
the sun was highest and shone longest on 
the gardens and palaces of the Romans. 
On his birthday, the neighbors had always 
come to Marcus’ home with rich gifts : bou- 
quets of flowers, carved brass bowls of fruit, 
and rich sweets. 

Marcus remembered a costly toy chariot 
that had been given him. It was a gilded 
model of those in which the charioteers 
rode in the Colosseum. There had been 
his gifts of painted balls and carved stone 
marbles and a small javelin in other years. 

It was different, though, this year. 
Marcus was too old for toys. He looked 
across the marble pavings of the court. 
Blooming orange and oleander and lemon 
trees stood all about it in great stone tubs. 
There was a fountain whose waters sang 


JO THE BOY WHO LOVED JUSTICE 

as they fell into a marble basin. At one 
end of the court there was a cage of pet 
doves cooing in tune to the playing of the 
fountain. Annia, Marcus’ little sister, had 
climbed upon the cage and was feeding the 
doves from her slim brown fingers. 

Marcus’ mother repeated her question. 

“What will you do on this, your birth- 
day, my son?” she asked. “There is little 
that I can offer you now that all the wealth 
of the family is yours. You are very rich, 
Marcus,” she added, sighing a little as she 
looked at her winsome little daughter. 

Marcus straightened himself proudly. 
With his mother’s words there had come 
a plan to his mind which was always keen 
where justice was concerned. 

“I will celebrate my birthday by break- 
ing a Roman custom,” Marcus announced. 
Then, as his mother looked surprised, he 
explained. 

“It is not just that a Roman son should 
receive all the riches of his family and that 
the daughter should be dependent upon 
his bounty. I shall divide my father’s 


THE BOY WHO LOVED JUSTICE 11 

estate to-day and give half to my sister, 
Annia.” 

“Give half of your wealth to Annia! 
Oh, Marcus, that is like your kindness 
of heart, but should you? ” his mother 
asked. 

“I can and will do anything that is just,” 
Marcus answered, reaching out his arms to 
Annia as the little girl came running across 
the court to him. 

The blood of the ancient kings ran 
in the veins of Marcus, this Roman boy 
of so many centuries ago. He was rich, 
beloved, handsome, but the qualities that 
have brought his name down to us through 
all the centuries are his unselfishness, his 
simplicity and his justice. 

It was not easy for him to become a 
knight of the Equestrian Order when he was 
only six years old. That meant strenuous 
training in horsemanship that would have 
tried the strength of a much older lad. 
When he was eight years old, Marcus was 
made one of the priests of Mars, which 
meant that he must perform many duties 


12 THE BOY WHO LOVED JUSTICE 

and carry messages in the temple without 
neglecting or forgetting one. 

When Marcus was twelve years old he 
went to school to the Stoics. They formed 
an order of the ancients who believed that 
hardships were more important in life than 
anything else. So little Marcus put on the 
Stoic’s rough dress. He slept on the hard 
floor or on the bare ground, denying himself 
a bed. He refused even the quilt that his 
mother offered him. Yet Marcus loved to 
play. He was a better gymnast than most 
of the other boys, and he was far above 
them in scholarship. 

It was all these qualities of Marcus 
which caused him to be made a magistrate 
of Rome when he was barely sixteen years 
old. 

Perhaps you have seen a picture of 
the old Roman Forum and remember how 
grand and great it is. Even the ruins of 
its stone walls seem to rise to the sky. 
Gan you imagine how small you, a boy or 
girl, would feel in the Roman Forum? 

If you can look back in imagination to 


THE BOY WHO LOVED JUSTICE 13 

the time of this story you may see the boy 
Marcus there the day of his birthday. He 
is seated in one of the law courts wearing 
the rich gown of his office, the official ring 
and the purple badge. Twelve attendants 
surround his chair as he listens to the cases 
that come before him and makes a wise 
decision in the case of each. His eyes see 
in dreams the ball grounds on the Roman 
plains where the other boys are at play, 
and he hears in fancy the roars of the lions 
at the Circus, where he would like to be, 
but he never once turns from the business 
at hand. 

Marcus grew up to be the great Emperor 
Marcus Aurelius Antonius of Rome. He 
was always kind and just and the best 
loved of all the Roman rulers. He began 
being Emperor, though, when he was a 
boy just as all great men are usually great, 
first of all, in their boyhood. 


THE BOY WHO COULD GIVE UP 

WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR 

It seems like a fairy tale come true 
when we go back to the beginnings of 
French history and see a little boy only 
twelve years old the lord of a great castle. 
He was the Duke of Normandy, a troubled 
little lad with no mother or father. His 
name was William, and that is what we will 
call him, for he was a real boy at heart. 

It was a gloomy old castle at Rouen. 
It was a hundred years old when William 
came to be its lord, and it was so full of 
great rooms and treasures of armor and 
plate that the lad hardly knew all his 
possessions. There were great stables, a 
huge banqueting hall, guest rooms hung 
with rich but dingy old tapestries, and an 
audience room in which the little Duke 
seemed lost as he sat on the great throne. 

There was a fortress, too, a stout stone 
fort that stood to guard the entrance to 
the castle grounds. Those were times of 

14 


THE BOY WHO COULD GIVE UP 


IS 


great stress in France. The country was 
divided into fiefs, small portions of land 
that were ruled by lords and barons. King 
Henry of France ruled all the fiefs, in a 
way, but there were quarrels all the time 
about ownership and boundary lines. The 
King had begun to feel that he was not 
sufficiently respected in Normandy, and he 
suddenly decided to invade its territory 
with an army thousands strong. 

William, Duke of Normandy, knew of 
the struggles and conflicts that were 
coming nearer and nearer his border lands. 
He worried about it, but he loved to hunt, 
and there was nothing that made him so 
happy as to ride a fleet horse like the wind 
over the sweeping plains of his land. 

Gilbert of Crispin, who had been warden 
of the castle for many years, guarded it 
with his yoemen when William wanted to 
go away to ride or hunt, and no one 
thought that the King of France would 
invade the duchy of a little boy of twelve. 

That was why William was away, and 
old Gilbert had few men to meet such an 


16 


THE BOY WHO COULD GIVE UP 


army of invaders, when King Henry of 
France descended upon the castle of the 
Duke of Normandy and demanded it with 
all its men and land for himself. 

Even the oldest servants of the little 
Duke, the kitchen helpers and the stable 
boys rallied and armed themselves to try 
to hold the castle for their master. The 
Knights of the King of France were tried 
in warfare, though, and they greatly out- 
numbered the force of the castle. Their 
shields and lances flashed in the sunshine 
and they shouted: 

“ Give us the keys of the castle. If you 
refuse we will raze the walls to the ground 
and kill the Duke and all his followers ! ” 

“The Duke of Normandy defies you!” 
shouted old Gilbert as he rallied his men 
to a brave attack in resistance of the 
invaders. They were sorely outnumbered, 
though. It would have gone very badly 
with plucky old Gilbert and the castle 
would have been destroyed if, just then, 
they had not heard a shrill trumpet peal 
ring out above the clash of swords. 


THE BOY WHO COULD GIVE UP 


17 


“ Make way ; make way for the Duke ! ” 
came a shout. 

The contending forces of the castle and 
the King stood aside. The great draw- 
bridge fell, the portcullis rose creakingly, 
the gate opened, and the Duke of Normandy 
rode into the court-yard. He rode like a 
man and his muscles were iron. The wind 
blew his waving brown hair from his face 
and showed his high forehead and clear 
eyes. Gilbert rode up to his young lord, 
pointing angrily toward the King and his 
army, but William beckoned him aside and 
addressed his retainers. 

“ Cease resisting the King of France ! ” 
the boy shouted. “ I was only seven years 
old when my father put my hand in the 
hand of this same Henry of France and 
made me swear to be his man and loyal to 
him always. I never thought that my 
loyalty would be put to so great a test as 
this, but I must keep my promise and give 
up my castle to my King. It is yours for 
the asking, my lord, if you feel that this 
will be best for Normandy and for you.” 


18 


THE BOY WHO COULD GIVE UP 


And William dismounted and bowed before 
his King. 

There was a silence then and the castle 
followers stepped back as the little Duke 
had commanded to allow the King to take 
possession of the castle. But the voice of 
the King suddenly rang out: 

“Kneel before your lord, William of 
Normandy,” he commanded, and the boy 
did as he was bade. The King drew his 
-sword and struck the little Duke three 
times on his shoulder with the flat blade 
and once on his cheek after the fashion of 
the accolade. Then the King said : 

“William of Normandy, in the name of 
God, of Saint Michael and Saint George, I 
dub thee Knight. Be valiant and loyal. 
Speak the truth ; do only what is right ; 
protect the defenceless; succor those who 
are distressed; champion all ladies; prove 
thy knighthood by bravery and endurance 
and perilous adventures and valorous deeds. 
Fear God ; fight for the faith and serve thy 
land faithfully and valiantly.” 

So the little Duke William was made a 


THE BOY WHO COULD GIVE UP 


19 


knight at the youngest age ever a boy had 
been knighted. He went into the castle 
with great honor although it was now his 
King’s, and it was a day of joy and feasting 
for every one, down to the meanest 
scullery lad. 

There was terrible work for the boy to 
do before many months. Traitors in the 
camp of the King of France turned some 
of William’s own subjects against him, and 
when the little knight was only thirteen he 
led an army that won back for him the 
castle in which he had lived so long. 

Battle after battle William won, but 
they were all good fights, and his record 
comes down to us as almost the greatest 
of princely virtue. He rode from one con- 
quest to another until he was William, the 
Conqueror, King of England. 

More than anything else, though, was 
William the conqueror of himself, the boy 
who could give up when this was the 
better part. 


THE MAN WHO OBEYED THE KING 

ROBIN HOOD 

Now the King had no mind that Robin 
Hood should do as he willed, and called 
his Knights to follow him to Nottingham, 
where they could lay plans how best to 
capture the felon. Here they heard sad 
tales of Robin’s misdoings and how, of the 
many herds of wild deer that had been 
wont to roam the forest, in some places 
scarcely one remained. This was the work 
of Robin Hood and his merry men, on 
whom the King swore vengeance with a 
great oath. 

“I would I had this Robin Hood in my 
hands,” cried he, “and an end should soon 
be put to his doings.” So spoke the King; 
but an old Knight, full of days and wisdom, 
answered him and warned him that the 
task of taking Robin Hood would be a 
sore one, and best let alone. The King , 
who had seen the vanity of his hot words 
the moment he had uttered them, listened 
20 


THE MAN WHO OBEYED THE KING 


21 


to the old man, and resolved to bide his 
time, if perhaps some day Robin Hood 
should fall into his power. 

All this time and for six weeks later 
that he dwelt at Nottingham the King 
could hear nothing of Robin, who seemed 
to have vanished into the earth with his 
merry men, though one by one the deer 
were vanishing too ! 

At last one day a forester came to the 
King, and told him that if he would see 
Robin he must come with him and take 
five of his best Knights. The King eagerly 
sprang up to do his bidding, and the six 
men, clad in monks’ clothes, mounted their 
horses and rode down to the Abbey, the 
King wearing an Abbot’s broad hat over 
his crown and singing as he passed through 
the greenwood. 

Suddenly at the turn of a path Robin 
and his archers appeared before them. 

“ By your leave, Sir Abbot,” said Robin, 
se izin g the King’s bridle, “you will stay a 
while with us. Know that we are yeomen, 
who live upon the King’s deer, and other 


22 


THE MAN WHO OBEYED THE KING 


food have we none. Now you have abbeys 
and churches, and gold in plenty; so give 
us some of it in the name of charity.” 

“I have no more than forty pounds 
with me,” answered the King, “but sorry 
I am it is not a hundred, for you should 
have had it all.” 

So Robin took the forty pounds and 
gave half to his men, and then told the 
King he might go on his way. “I thank 
you,” said the King, “but I would have 
you know that our King has bid me bear 
you his seal, and pray you to come to 
Nottingham.” 

At this message Robin bent his knee. 

“ I love no man in all the world so well 
as I do my King,” he cried, “ and, Sir Abbot, 
for your tidings, which fill my heart with 
joy, to-day thou shalt dine with me for 
love of my King.” Then he led the King 
into an open place and Robin took a horn 
and blew it loudly. At its blast seven- 
score of young men came speedily to do 
his will. 

“They are quicker to do his bidding 


THE MAN WHO OBEYED THE KING 23 

than my men are to do mine,” said the 
King to himself. 

Speedily the foresters set out the dinner, 
venison and white bread, and Robin Hood 
and Little John served the King. 

“Make good cheer, Abbot,” said Robin 
Hood, “ and then you shall see what sort of 
life we lead, so that you may tell our King.” 

When he had finished eating the archers 
took their bows, and hung rose garlands 
up with a string, and every man was to 
shoot through a garland. If he failed he 
should have a blow on the head from 
Robin. 

Good bowmen as they were, few man- 
aged to stand the test. Little John and 
Will Scarlet and Much all shot wide of the 
mark, and at length no one was left in 
the contest but Robin himself and Gilbert 
of the White Hand. Then Robin fired his 
last bolt, and it fell three fingers from the 
garland. 

“Master,” said Gilbert, “you have lost. 
Stand forth and take your punishment.” 

“I will take it,” answered Robin, “but, 


24 


THE MAN WHO OBEYED THE KING 

Sir Abbot, I pray that I may suffer it at 
your hands.” 

The King hesitated. It did not become 
him, he said, to smite such a stout yeoman, 
but Robin bade him smite on. So he turned 
up his sleeve and gave Robin such a buffet 
on the head that he rolled upon the ground. 

“ There is pith in your arm,” said Robin. 
“Come, shoot with me.” And the King 
took up a bow and, in so doing, his hat 
fell back and Robin saw his face. 

“M.y lord, the King of England, now I 
know you well,” cried he, and he fell on 
his knees and all the outlaws with him. 
“Mercy I ask, my lord the King, for my 
men and me.” 

“Mercy I grant,” then said the King, 
“and therefore I came hither to bid you 
and your men leave the greenwood and 
dwell in my Court with me.” 

“So shall it be,” answered Robin. “I 
and my men will come to your Court and 
see how your service liketh us.” 

From “The Book of Romance,” by Andrew Lang. Copyright by 
Longmans, Green & Company. 


THE LITTLE POOR MAN 

BROTHER FRANCIS OF ASSISI 

If we could have lived seven hundred 
years ago in Assisi, a little city of Italy, 
built on a mountain side, we would have 
known a boy, Francis Bernardino. 

There was sunshine everywhere in 
Assisi. Above the brown tiled roofs of the 
tiny stone houses there were tall green 
cypress trees. Bright flowers bloomed at 
the windows, and in the squares of Assisi 
farmers sold leaf lined baskets of grapes 
and plums and figs. 

Outside of Assisi the fields were yellow 
with grain and sweet with orange groves. 
In the shadow of the vines, great white 
oxen drew ploughs, and there were deep 
forests full of birds, and wild blossoms. 

Francis loved the little walled town of 
Assisi; he loved, too, the country that lay 
outside, but there was so much to interest 
him at home that he did not often go 
farther than the gate of the city. 

25 


26 


THE LITTLE POOR MAN 


Piero Bernardino, the little boy’s father, 
was a very wealthy merchant of Assisi. 
When he came home after buying his rich 
cloth and brocades it was like the home- 
coming of a prince. Francis and his mother, 
with crowds of the townsfolk of Assisi, 
waited for him at the gate. Piero would 
ride ahead, surrounded by soldiers, and 
next came the pack-horses loaded with the 
goods. There was usually another troop of 
soldiers at the end of the procession. 

As Francis followed his father to the 
great house where he lived, he thought 
how pleasant it was to be rich. He was 
happy to be known as the son of the 
wealthiest man in Assisi. Nothing seemed 
to him so good as to have more riches 
than the other boys with whom he played. 

So Francis grew up, careless and gay 
and thoughtless. His friends were boys 
whose fathers were counts and dukes. 
They were vain, and proud of the palaces 
in which they lived. Francis’ mother was 
sad as she heard him shouting and boasting 
as loudly as the others. But she thought. 


THE LITTLE POOR MAN 


27 


also : “No matter how careless and wild 
Francis is, he has a kind and loving heart.” 

And this was true, because he was 
always quick to be sorry for any one who 
was ill or in need. 

The other boys jeered at Francis for 
this. When he would rather give his purse 
of gold to a beggar than use it to buy 
sweets and toys; and when he wrapped 
his own rich cloak about a man who had 
none, they laughed at him. 

Then there was a war and Francis, 
grown older, went from Assisi to help fight 
the Perugian army. There he saw men 
terribly hurt and dying, and war seemed 
to him cruel instead of glorious. He was 
not afraid ; he fought bravely. But he 
went home to Assisi with a strange, new 
desire in his heart. 

One day in a little square of Assisi there 
was a strange sight. The same crowds that 
had watched the rich merchant come home 
with his wealth saw a barefooted figure, 
dressed in a long dust colored robe and 
wearing a rope knotted about the waist. 


28 


THE LITTLE POOR MAN 


It was Francis, who had heard the Captain 
of his soul calling to him. He was going 
away from Assisi. 

“Brother Francis, you must be poor, 
not rich,” the voice had said to him. “You 
must no longer wear soft clothing and 
feast with princes. You must go through 
the lanes and city streets taking care of 
the sick, the helpless and the poor.” 

So Brother Francis started away with- 
out food, or money, or a home. But he 
was, all at once, happier than he had ever 
been in all his life. If he saw a poor little 
church being erected by the side of the 
road he wanted to help build it with stones 
that he brought in his own hands. Who- 
ever he met with a heavy load, he helped 
with the burden. If anyone gave him food, 
he shared it with hungry children. Doing 
this, Brother Francis began to feel richer 
than he ever had in his father’s house. The 
wind spoke to him and the birds sang in 
his ears. The silver leaves of the olive trees 
whispered stories to him, and wherever he 
went people loved him. 


THE LITTLE POOH MAN 


29 


One by one, others followed Brother 
Francis. They lived as he lived. They wore 
dust colored robes and went barefooted. 
They worked as he did for the helpless and 
those in pain. They were a company of 
Little Poor Men, and they gave service to 
whoever needed it, even when they had not 
a loaf of bread or a penny. 

In those long ago days strange and won- 
derful things sometimes happened. Such 
things happened after a while to Brother 
Francis. 

II. 

In the little city of Gubbio, to which 
there is a wild mountain road, everyone 
was in terror of a huge, gray wolf. It ate 
the sheep and the goats. It killed the 
shepherds. No one dared to go outside of 
the city, for the wolf stayed close to the 
gates, and it had the strength of three men. 
Hunters were not able to kill the wolf. 
They often saw the great gray creature 
skulking through the dark, or a pile of 
bones that it had left. They never caught 
it, though, and night after night people 


30 


THE LITTLE POOR MAN 


lay in bed and trembled, hearing the soft 
pad of the wolfs feet coming nearer and 
nearer. 

Then Brother Francis came to Gubbio. 
He horrified the city when he said that he 
would go out, alone, and meet the wolf. 

They begged him not to, but he would 
not heed them. He went, as a soldier goes 
bravely to meet the enemy, out of the city 
gate and down the road to the wood where 
the wolf lurked. 

There he met the wolf, loping swiftly 
along with his great jaws open. 

But Brother Francis called : 

“Come, Brother Wolf. Do no harm to 
me, or to any one.” 

The crowd that had followed Brother 
Francis saw the wolf come gently up and 
lie down like a lamb at Brother Francis’ 
feet. Even the children could come close 
and listen as Brother Francis spoke to 
him : 

“ If you will stop killing men and beasts, 
Brother Wolf,” he said, “and make peace 
with the city, we will forgive you all the 


THE LITTLE POOR MAN 


31 


harm that you have done. As long as you 
live, the people of Gubbio shall give you 
food so that you may never be hungry. 
Show me, Brother Wolf, that you promise 
to do no more harm.” 

Brother Francis held out his hand, and 
the wolf stood up and put his paw in it. 
Then Brother Francis turned back to the 
city, the wolf walking like a great pet dog 
at his side. After this Brother Wolf lived 
in the city, going peacefully from door to 
door for his food. He was well fed, no 
dogs were allowed to bark at him, and he 
kept his promise to Brother Francis until 
he died of old age. 

There was another wonder in Brother 
Francis’ life. People have liked to remember 
it, and paint beautiful pictures of Brother 
Francis with his little friends, the birds. 

Brother Francis often stopped by the 
fields and along the roadsides to talk to the 
people. He told them stories and tried to 
make them understand how much happier 
the poor are than the rich. The birds 
seemed to want to listen, too. By hundreds 


32 


THE LITTLE POOR MAN 


they flew, perching on the trees and low 
branches, and even on the shoulders of 
Brother Francis’ dust colored robe. Wher- 
ever Brother Francis went the birds flocked 
too. 

Once he suddenly turned and said : “ I 
am going to speak to my little brothers, 
the birds,” and he did, telling them how the 
fields fed them, and the rivers gave them 
drink, and they were beautifully clothed in 
their coats of feathers with no thought or 
care on their part. 

The birds had been twittering and sing- 
ing when he began. As he spoke they 
were quiet and folded their wings and bent 
their heads. They understood what he 
said, and when he had finished they rose 
in the air and flew away, north, south, east 
and west, singing more sweetly than they 
had ever sung before. They were Little 
Poor Brothers of the air, flying to carry 
over all the earth the message of Brother 
Francis. 

So Brother Francis lived all his life, poor, 
and giving comfort, and happy. Nothing 


THE LITTLE POOR MAN 


33 


was too small or too humble for him to 
try to help. Once he rescued a pair of 
doves from being sold in the market place. 
Once he came upon a frightened little hare 
that was caught in a trap. 

“Come with me, Brother Hare,” said 
Brother Francis, and the hare slipped out 
of the trap and ran to him, following him 
through the woods. 

And Brother Francis nursed the poor, 
and was willing to touch lepers of whom 
everyone else was afraid. 

During all these years Brother Francis 
had lived most of the time with only the 
sky for a roof and no bed but the grass. 
He had never been sorry for being poor, 
but he loved the mountains, and he thought 
when he looked at them, their shining tops 
bright with the sunset, that they were 
more beautiful than any palace in the 
world. 

Someone must have read his thoughts. 
When Brother Francis was quite old and 
worn, a Count who loved him gave him a 
mountain. 


34 


THE LITTLE POOR MAN 


It was a wild, beautiful mountain in 
Tuscany. The Little Poor Men climbed it 
until they found a level place, full of birds 
and flowers, and fit for Brother Francis to 
live. Then they cut great, sweet smelling 
branches of fir and cedar, and built huts, 
and when they were done they brought 
Brother Francis up. 

The stories say that one morning very 
early the shepherds, just awake on the 
plains below Brother Francis’ mountain, 
saw a great light. All the mountain was 
glorious with a rosy light. It looked as if 
it were on fire, and the light spread down 
the sides and filled the windows of the 
little houses where the peasants lived. It 
was too early for the sunrise. Everyone 
was awakened and wondered very much 
about the light. 

When it had faded and it was time for 
the sun to rise, they could see only the hut 
of Brother Francis on the mountain. 

So his life shines down to us, a bright 
light through all the years. 


THE SHEPHERDESS WHOSE DREAM 
CAME TRUE 

JEANNE D’ARC 

I 

“Now that the fairy tree is decorated 
we may sit under it and eat our cakes,” 
said Jacques. “ Come on, Pierre ; open the 
basket,” and the two little French boys 
motioned to Catherine to join them as they 
seated themselves for their feast beneath 
the wide spreading branches of the tree. 
For a while there was no sound except 
the whispering of the wind in the branches. 

It was five centuries ago in France, and 
Pierre and Jacques and Catherine were 
children of the little village of Domremy 
in the province of Lorraine. Everyone, 
children and grown ups, for miles about 
on the country side knew about the fairy 
tree. The old beech had stood for many 
years on the banks of the river Meuse 
holding, so the peasants believed, the shapes 
of fairies in its shadows. They had done 

35 


36 


THE SHEPHERDESS 


everything they could to make it beautiful. 
There was a fountain at its base and the 
children at holiday time made wreaths of 
flowers to trim its branches and sat beneath 
it to eat their feast of sweets. It had come 
about that they were called the Children 
of the Tree. They talked about it now as 
they cast timid glances beyond the tree to 
the dim forest of oaks so short a distance 
ahead. 

“Do you suppose she will come to-day?” 
Catherine whispered. 

“ Who ? ” asked Pierre. 

“Pierre doesn’t know ; he was too small 
to come here with us on the last holiday,” 
Jacques said. “They say that some day 
when we have trimmed the fairy tree as 
we have to-day and sit under it, waiting, 
a strange thing will happen. A fairy child 
will come through the wood, and she will 
do wonders.” 

“Oh, if we might only see her!” Cath- 
erine said, her dark eyes shining. 

As if it were in answer to the children’s 
wishes, the branches of the woods parted. 


THE SHEPHERDESS 


37 


The leaves rustled, and they heard footsteps 
along the forest path. They rose to their 
feet, startled. 

“ She is coming ! ” they cried as a little 
girl of their own age came slowly from out 
of the shadows and stood in the sunlight 
beside the fairy tree. 

She was a peasant girl as they were. 
She wore a coarse smock and wooden 
shoes, and she carried a shepherd’s crook 
in her hand. But her eyes were full of a 
deep longing and she held her little head 
high, her long hair streaming out behind 
her like a veil. 

“ I had a dream,” she said. “ It came to 
me when I was tending the sheep on the 
hillside. I shall not always be in Domremy. 
This is my secret, and I am telling it to 
you because I love you all, and you have 
been my playmates. Our beautiful Prance 
needs me and she will call me soon to go 
away and help her. The foes of France 
must be conquered, and I shall help so 
that the Dauphin may be crowned at 
Rheims. When he is crowned I shall be 


38 


-THE SHEPHERDESS 


there. I must leave you to help my coun- 
try.” 

For a second the children were silent. 
Then laughter came from the lips of the 
gay little Catherine. 

“Jeanne Romee!” she laughed. “The 
little shepherd girl of Domremy — not the 
fairy child at all ! And she thinks that she 
is going to save her country ; that was a 
silly kind of dream ! ” 

The others laughed too. They all knew 
Jeanne. They had gone to school with her 
and had watched her tend the little ones 
at home. They had left her behind for play 
when she must tend the flock of sheep. 
Jeanne never had much time for play. She 
knew a great deal about the birds and the 
flowers and the trees. 

Sometimes when she was alone with 
the sheep she thought that she heard 
voices calling to her to go and help her 
stricken country. But everyone laughed 
at Jeanne and she seldom spoke of the 
voices now. The children’s laughter hurt 
her. They gathered up the fragments of 


THE SHEPHERDESS 


39 


their feast now and ran off home, leaving 
Jeanne alone. 

She stood a moment, looking off into 
the distance. As she did so the blue river, 
the white clouds, and the tree with its 
garlands of flowers seemed to melt away, 
and she saw a picture instead. She saw a 
warrior maiden, all in white armor, and 
riding on a white charger. She carried a 
floating white banner, and she was riding to 
lead the armies of the Dauphin to triumph 
over their English foes. Then, as quickly as 
it had come, the vision was gone. Jeanne 
could hear the echoes of the children’s 
laughter. She dropped her eyes to the 
ground and started slowly to the little 
village on the edge of the wood where she 
lived. There were her sheep to tend, and 
the spinning to do, and a great deal beside 
to help her mother. 

The peaceful life of the little girl at 
Domremy was soon broken. There came a 
storm of war, for the English were fighting 
in France. The distress came as far as the 
peaceful little village on the Meuse and 


40 


THE SHEPHERDESS 


thousands of wounded and outcasts passed 
the door of Jeanne’s cottage. Jeanne was 
older now and could do much to help 
them. She nursed the wounded and fed 
the hungry, and gave up her own bed to 
those who had none. Many times she 
saw again the vision of the warrior maid in 
white armor, riding on the great charger 
and leading the army of the French to 
victory. 

At last Jeanne made up her mind that 
her dream must come true. 

II. 

“I must go to the King,” Jeanne told 
her parents. “I may die, but I must go.” 
So she left the quiet little village and her 
sheep. 

The captain of her village was a rough 
man, but he went with the girl to the court 
of France. He led her by her hand into 
the presence of the Dauphin, the son of 
the King of France. 

“ My Heavenly Father sends me to tell 
you that you shall be crowned at Rheims,” 


THE SHEPHERDESS 


41 


she said as she knelt before him. “I am 
come to help you.” 

The Dauphin was so touched by Jeanne’s 
earnestness that he gave orders that she 
should be allowed to do as she wished. 
She was given a suit of shining white 
armor, and a great white charger like the 
one that she had seen in her dream. She 
carried a white banner and rode at the 
head of the army. It seemed to the soldiers 
that Jeanne had really been sent from 
heaven to help them. Following the white 
warrior maid, who was at their head, they 
fought like madmen. They battled as they 
never had before; they had lost all fear. 
Jeanne d’Arc, as she was now called, rode 
at their head like a flying angel. Nothing 
hurt her, and she did not know fear. 

Seeing her, the English were terrified. 
They, too, thought that Jeanne d’Arc could 
not be of the earth but was an angel, 
leading the French to victory. The English 
fell back in their fear, and the French burst 
through their lines. Again and again the 
English were defeated. Jeanne led the 


42 


THE SHEPHERDESS 


French army to Rheims for the crowning 
of the Dauphin as King of France. 

Everyone had missed Jeanne at Dom- 
remy. The sheep had a new shepherdess, 
and the wishing tree stood on the edge 
of the wood holding the children’s faded 
wreaths on its branches. Catherine and 
Jacques and Pierre were older now, and 
they were all to go to Rheims for the 
coronation. They had heard reports of this 
strange white warrior maid. How they 
hoped that they might see her! 

It was a bright spring morning, and 
there were great crowds of people gathered 
at Rheims to see the Dauphin ascend the 
throne. They came to the open place in 
front of the cathedral of Rheims. It seemed 
to the young people from Domremy that 
they had never seen so many people before 
in all their lives. 

There was a hush at last as a proces- 
sion entered the square and moved slowly 
toward the cathedral. The musicians came 
first and then bands of children dressed in 
white and holding branches in their hands. 



Last, the children of Domremy saw Jeanne! 




THE SHEPHERDESS 


43 


There were soldiers, and heralds, and offi- 
cers of state in their splendid robes, and 
knights and noblemen and choir boys ! 

Last, the children of Domremy saw 
Jeanne ! 

She was very beautiful in her steel 
armor and riding her great white horse. 
Her banner was embroidered with the 
lilies of France, the country she had saved. 
Although she rode next the Dauphin and 
her path was strewn with flowers, Jeanne 
was as gentle as she had been when she 
tended her sheep on the hills of Domremy. 

As they watched her triumphal entry 
into Rheims, the children remembered the 
little girl who had stood before them under 
the wishing tree. They could hear, again, 
her words : “ 1 am telling my secret to you 
because I love you. I shall help France 
so that the Dauphin may be crowned at 
Rheims. When he is crowned I shall 
be there. I must leave you to help my 
country.” 

The children thought, too, of Jeanne’s 
patience in giving up her play time to help 


44 


THE SHEPHERDESS 


at home, and of her gentleness with the 
sheep. 

“ Come home ; come home with us to 
Domremy, Jeanne ! ” they cried. “We want 
you ; and your work is done now.” 

But the warrior maid did not turn, 
although she was lonely for the sound of 
the river at home and the whir of her 
spinning wheel. There was a longer road 
ahead of her than the flower strewn one 
she was taking now to the coronation. No 
matter how much she wished to, she could 
not go home. 

The King of France still needed her, so 
Jeanne went on leading the soldiers, until 
there came a time when she fell into the 
hands of the English. They believed that 
if the French army had to march without 
Jeanne d’Arc it would soon be defeated; 
so the English condemned Jeanne to death. 
They burned her as a witch. 

If we close our eyes and listen, though, 
we may hear what Jeanne d’Arc heard 
during her long, dark days in prison. We 
may hear the singing of the River Meuse 


THE SHEPHERDESS 


45 


and the wind in the branches of the fairy 
tree. We hear, too, the tinkle of the sheep 
bells and the whir of the spinning wheels of 
Domremy. They make a song that comes 
down to us through all the many years 
since the young warrior maid rode to battle. 
It is a song with words that tell us of the 
shepherd girl’s dream and her courage and 
the honor that is hers forever. 


THE BOY WHO CONQUERED FIRE 

PALISSY 

Four hundred years ago a little boy 
named Bernard Palissy was bom in a 
village of France, not very far from the 
great river Garonne. The country around 
was beautiful at all times of the year — in 
spring with orchards in flower, in summer 
with fields of corn, in autumn with heavy 
laden vines climbing up the sides of the 
hills. Farther north stretched wide heaths 
gay with bloom, and vast forests of walnut 
and chestnuts. Through the forests roamed 
hordes of pigs, greedy after the fallen chest- 
nuts that made them so fat, or burrowing 
about the roots of trees for the truffles 
growing just out of sight. 

When the peasants who owned the 
pigs saw them sniffing and scratching in 
certain places, they went out at once and 
dug for themselves, for truffles as well as 
pigs were thought delicious eating, and 
fetched high prices from the rich people. 

46 


THE BOY WHO CONQUERED FIRE 47 

But the forests of the province of 
Perigord contained other inhabitants than 
the pigs and their masters, and these were 
the workers in glass, the people who for 
generations had made those wonderful 
colored windows which are the glory of 
French cathedrals. These glass workers 
were set apart from all other traders. A 
nobleman might make a beautiful window 
without bringing down upon himself the 
scorn of his friends. 

Still, at a time when the houses of the 
poor were generally built of wood, it was 
considered very dangerous to have glass 
furnaces, with the fire often at white heat 
in the middle of a town. So a law was 
passed forcing them to carry on their work 
at a distance. 

In Perigord the glass workers were 
kept in the forest where they could cut 
down the logs they needed for their kilns 
and where ferns grew, which, when reduced 
to powder, were needed in the manufacture 
of the glass. 

Bernard must have had many companions 


48 THE BOY WHO CONQUERED FIRE 

among the children of the forest. He went 
through the world with his eyes always 
open, and he soon learned a great deal of 
all that had to be done in order to turn 
out the bits of glass that blazed like jewels 
when the sun shone on them. There were 
special kinds of earth, or rocks, or plants to 
be sought for, and when found the glass- 
maker must know how to use them, so as 
to get exactly the color or thickness of 
material that he wanted. 

And when the glassmaker had spent 
hours and hours mixing his substances and 
seeing that he had put in just the right 
quantity of each and no more, perhaps the 
fire would be a little too hot and the glass 
would crack. Or it might be a little too 
cold and the mixture would not become 
solid glass. Then the poor man would 
have to begin his work all over again. 

Bernard stood by and watched, and 
noted the patience of the glass workers as 
well as the way that the glass was made. 

But Bernard learned other things besides 
how to make glass. He was taught to read 


THE BOY WHO CONQUERED FIRE 49 

and write, and by-and-by to draw. In his 
walks through the woods or over the 
hills he looked at the fallen leaves or up 
through the branches of the trees in search 
of anything that might be hidden there. 
He especially loved the bright-eyed lizards, 
and sometimes he would persuade them to 
stay quiet for a few minutes by singing 
some country songs while he took out his 
roll of paper and made rough sketches of 
them. 

But after a while Bernard Palissy grew 
restless. He left home and traveled on 
foot over the south of France, gaining fresh 
knowledge at every step as those do who 
keep their wits about them. He had no 
money so he paid his way by drawing 
pictures. Sometimes he made portraits of 
the village innkeeper’s children, or meas- 
ured the field at the back of the house 
where the good man thought of laying 
out his garden of fruit and herbs. 

An d as Palissy, now a young man, went 
he visited the cathedrals in the town as 
well as the forges and the manufactories; 


50 THE BOY WHO CONQUERED FIRE 

and he never stopped until he found out 
why this city made cloth, and that one silk, 
and a third wonderful patterns of wrought 
iron. 

After several years Palissy settled down 
in the little town of Saintes. He supported 
himself by surveying until something that 
changed his whole life happened to him. 

A French gentleman named Pons, who 
had spent a long time at the Italian court, 
returned to France bringing with him 
many beautiful things. Among these was 
an earthenware cup, wonderfully shaped 
and enamelled. Pons happened to meet 
Palissy, and finding that the same subjects 
interested them both, he showed him the 
cup. The young man could scarcely con- 
tain himself for the sight. For some time 
he had been turning over in his mind the 
possibility of discovering enamel, or glaze, 
to put on the earthen pots. Here, in per- 
fection, was the very thing he was looking 
for. 

Then a pirate boat sailed into port with 
a great Spanish ship in tow. It was filled 


THE BOY WHO CONQUERED FIRE 51 

with earthenware cups from Venice and 
plates and goblets from the Spanish city 
of Valencia, famous for its marvelously 
beautiful glaze. The news reached Palissy, 
and he made a study of the best of the 
pots before they were bought by the King, 
Francis I. 

The Venetian and Spanish workers still 
kept their secrets so that Palissy was 
obliged to work on in the dark. He bought 
cheap earthenware pots and broke them 
and pounded the pieces in a mortar to 
discover, if he could, the substances of 
which they were made. 

II 

All this took a long time, and Palissy 
almost starved as he worked. 

Week after week went by and Palissy 
was to be seen in his little work shop, 
making experiments with pieces of common 
pots over which he spread the different 
mixtures that he had made. He baked 
these pieces in his furnace, hoping that 
some of the mixtures might, when hot, 


52 THE BOY WHO CONQUERED FIRE 

produce a color. White was what he 
desired above all, though. He had heard 
that if once you had been able to procure 
a fine white, it was comparatively easy to 
get the rest. Remembering how, as a boy, 
he had used certain chemical substances in 
staining the glass, he put these into some 
of his mixtures, and hopefully awaited the 
result. 

But, alas ! he had never seen earth 
baked, and he had no idea how hot the 
fire of his furnace should be or in what way 
to regulate it. Sometimes the substance 
was baked too much, and sometimes too 
little. And every day he was building fresh 
furnaces in place of the old which had 
cracked, collecting fresh materials, making 
fresh failures, and spending all his money. 

The amount of wood necessary to feed 
the furnaces was enormous, and when 
Palissy could no longer afford to buy it, 
he cut down all the trees and bushes in 
his garden, and when they were exhausted 
he burned all the tables and chairs in his 
house and tore up the floors. His friends 


THE BOY WHO CONQUERED FIRE 53 

laughed at him, but nothing turned him 
from his purpose. Except for a few hours 
a week when he worked at something 
which would bring in money enough to 
keep him alive, he gave every moment and 
every thought to the discovery which was 
so slow in being made. 

Again he bought some cheap pots, 
which he broke in pieces, and covered 
three or four hundred fragments with his 
mixtures. These he carried, with the help 
of a man, to the kiln belonging to some 
potters in the forest and asked leave to 
bake them. The potters gave him permis- 
sion, and the pieces were laid carefully 
in the furnace. After four hours Palissy 
ventured to examine them, and found one 
of the fragments perfectly baked, and cov- 
ered with a beautiful white glaze. 

He was full of joy, but too soon, for 
success was still far distant. 

The mixture that produced the result 
was due to Palissy having added a little 
more of some special substance, because 
when he tried to make a fresh mixture to 


54 THE BOY WHO CONQUERED FIRE 

spread over the rest of the pieces, he failed 
to obtain the same result. Still, he was 
not discouraged. He had done what he 
had wanted once, and some day he knew 
he would do it again, and always. 

He was too poor to get help. He 
worked for more than a month, night and 
day, grinding into powders the substances 
such as he had used in the moment of 
his success. But heat the furnace as he 
might, it would not bake and again he was 
beaten. He had found the secret of the 
enamel, but not how to make it form part 
of the pots. 

Each time victory seemed certain, fresh 
misfortune occurred. The mortar used by 
the potter in building his kiln was full of 
small pebbles, and when the oven became 
very hot these pebbles split and mixed with 
the glaze. Then the enamel was spread 
over the earthen pots, which at last were 
properly baked, and the surface of each 
pot, instead of being absolutely smooth, 
became sharp and full of points. 

To guard against this, Palissy invented 


THE BOY WHO CONQUERED FIRE 55 

a kind of case in which he put his pots 
while they were in the kiln, and he found 
this extremely useful. 

Now he began to pluck up heart and 
to model lizards and serpents, tortoises and 
lobsters, leaves and flowers ; but it was a 
long time before he could turn them out as 
he wished. The green of the lizards burned 
before the color of the serpents was prop- 
erly fixed; and the lobsters, serpents, and 
other creatures were baked before it suited 
the potter. 

But at length his patience and courage 
triumphed over all difficulties. He learned 
how to manage his furnace and how to 
mix his materials. The victory had taken 
Palissy, the master potter, sixteen years to 
win, but at last he, and not the fire, was 
master. He could make what he liked, and 
ask what price he chose. 

From “The Red Book of Heroes,’ ’ by Mrs. Andrew Lang. Copy- 
right by Longmans, Green & Company. 


THE BOY WHO TRUSTED HIS FATHER 


WALTER TELL 

The Austrians, a long time ago, were 
the masters of the Swiss, just as the Nor- 
mans, in the olden time, were the masters 
of the Saxons. And when one nation is 
over another, there nearly always arises 
a tyrant who makes the lot of the down- 
trodden race wretched in the extreme. 

Such a tyrant was Gessler, the Austrian 
governor of the Swiss States, in the days 
of William Tell. In order to trample the 
people down to the very dust, Gessler, not 
content with making them bow down 
before him, went so far as to give an order 
that they should bow the knee to his hat, 
which for that purpose was hung aloft on 
a high pole. 

Now it chanced that William Tell and 
his son, Walter, were at Altorf on a visit 
to Walter’s grandmother, when they passed 
the hat pole. They did not see it, and so 
neglected to bow before the hat. For this 

56 


THE BOY WHO TRUSTED HIS FATHER 57 

neglect Tell was made prisoner, and was 
brought before Gessler on the charge of 
refusing to obey the governor’s command. 

Tell defended himself by saying that 
he had not noticed the hat, and that his 
neglect was therefore due rather to acci- 
dent than to design. This did not satisfy 
Gessler, for he hated Tell on another 
account. So seeing Walter Tell with his 
father, he hit upon a cruel way of reveng- 
ing himself. 

“I hear that you like to boast about 
your shooting,” he said to Tell, “and that 
you can shoot an arrow through an apple 
at a hundred paces. It is my will that you 
shoot through an apple placed upon your 
boy’s head. As a favor I will let you 
stand at a distance of only eighty paces; 
if you shoot through the apple, you shall 
not be put to death, but shall go free.” 

Tell was aghast, and begged Gessler 
to kill him rather than to put him to such 
a cruel test of his archery. But the hard 
hearted Gessler would not relent. 

Walter spoke then, for he was the 


58 THE BOY WHO TRUSTED HIS FATHER 

fearless little son of a hero. “Kneel not 
before that false man!” Walter said. “Tell 
me where I am to stand. I am not afraid. 
My father can hit a bird upon the wing, 
and he will not miss when aiming at an 
apple placed upon the head of his child.” 

“Bind the boy to that tree,” retorted 
Gessler, pointing as he spoke to a tall lime 
tree that grew hard by. 

But Walter cried, “No, I will not be 
bound.” 

“Let them bind your eyes then,” said 
one of Gessler’s attendants, who pitied the 
hapless father and the brave lad. 

“Why bind my eyes?” was Walter’s 
reply. “Do you think that I am afraid of 
an arrow from my father’s hand ? I will 
stand quite still and wait for it, without 
even stirring an eyelash.” 

Then turning to his father he exclaimed, 
“Quick, father, show them what an archer 
you are ! Shoot and hit, and so vex the 
tyrant who thinks to destroy us both.” 

Encouraged by the confident speech of 
his son, Tell took two arrows from his 


THE BOY WHO TRUSTED HIS FATHER 59 

quiver, while Walter was led to the lime 
tree, and the apple was placed upon his 
head. The people cried out to shame 
Gessler, for Walter was only a little lad 
and the pride of his father’s heart; but it 
was all in vain. The cruel tyrant refused 
to alter his sentence. He even pretended 
that he was acting kindly to Tell. He said 
that he was giving him a chance to save 
his life, when he might have had him put 
to death for refusing to bow before the 
uplifted cap. 

Then, in breathless silence, the heart 
broken father took aim, pulled his bow, 
and shot, not through the boy’s brain as 
Gessler had hoped that he would, but 
straight through the center of the core of 
the apple. Great was the joy of everyone 
who saw it, and greater still was the 
chagrin of the tyrant, Gessler. 

“Father,” shouted Walter, running for- 
ward to meet him with the apple in his 
hand. “I knew you could do it. I was 
sure you would not hurt your boy.” 


Selected 


THE BOY WHO COULD NOT BE 
BRIBED 

A STORY ABOUT THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON 

Men who hunt foxes often do great 
damage to the farmers’ crops by riding 
over the fields on horseback. One day a 
farmer, who was at work in his field, saw 
a party of red-coated huntsmen, with their 
dogs, coming across one of his meadows 
toward a wheat field. As the wheat was 
just springing up, the farmer was anxious 
that it should not be trampled down. 

Calling one of his plow boys, who was 
working close by, he told him to run 
quickly and shut the gate, and to make 
sure that none of the hunters went into 
the field. 

The boy hurried away, and reached the 
field just in time to shut the gate as the 
first huntsman rode up. 

“Open the gate at once, my boy,” said 
the man, “ we want to go through the 
field.” 


60 



“Hurrah! Hurrah! for the Duke of Wellington !” 




































- 







% 






























































9 













































THE BOY WHO COULD NOT BE BRIBED 61 

“ I can’t do it,” answered the boy, 
“ master has ordered me to let no one 
pass through, so I cannot open the gate 
myself, or allow you to do so.” 

By this time others of the hunting 
party had come up, and one was so angry 
with the boy that he threatened to strike 
him with his whip if he did not open the 
gate. The lad replied that he was only 
obeying his master, and that it was his 
duty to do so. 

Another gentleman offered to give the 
lad a sovereign if he would allow them to 
pass through. This was very tempting to 
the boy who had never had so much 
money; but he remembered his duty, and 
refused to disobey his master’s orders. 

This delay annoyed the hunting party 
very much, and at last a stately gentleman 
came up and said: “My boy, you do not 
know me,— I am the Duke of Wellington- 
one not in the habit of being disobeyed; 
I command you to open the gate this 
moment that my friends and I may pass 
through.” 


62 THE BOY WHO COULD NOT BE BRIBED 

The boy looked in wonder at the great 
soldier. He had heard of his many victories, 
and was proud to be talking to so great a 
man. He took off his hat, bowed to the 
great Duke, and replied : 

“I am sure the Duke of Wellington 
would not wish me to disobey my master’s 
orders; I must keep this gate shut, and 
cannot let anyone pass without the farmer’s 
permission.” 

The Duke was pleased with the boy’s 
answer and, raising his hat, he said : “ I can 
honor the boy who can neither be bribed 
nor frightened into disobeying orders. With 
an army of such soldiers I could conquer 
the world.” 

The hunting party now no longer tried 
to pass through the forbidden gate, but, 
turning their horses, rode in another direc- 
tion. The boy ran toward his master, 
shouting : 

“Hurrah ! hurrah ! for the Duke of Well- 
ington ! ” 

The farmer, who had watched the scene, 
was much concerned when he learned who 


THE BOY WHO COULD NOT BE BRIBED 63 

it was that had been turned away, but 
he felt that he had found a boy whom he 
could trust. 


Selected. 


THE GIRL WHO SAVED HER FATHER 


PRASCOVIA 

Prascovia was a little girl of Russia 
whose father was a captain of the army. 

A wonderful life, a child of today thinks, 
must have been hers. We can shut our 
eyes and imagine we see her in her bright 
cap, furs, and high boots. Russia is a fairy- 
land for children in the winter with its ice 
carnivals, the dashing sleighs, and everyone 
full of happiness and laughter. 

But Prascovia was not a fortunate child 
of Russia. For some unknown reason her 
father had been banished to black Siberia, 
and Prascovia and her mother went with 
him for they could not bear to think of his 
bearing his exile alone. 

Siberia is a barren, terrible district of 
Russia. For weeks at a time there is no 
sunshine, and the winter lasts for nine 
months. Prascovia was cold and lonely 
and untaught, but she tried to be of as 
much comfort to her mother and father as 


64 


THE GIRL WHO SAVED HER FATHER 65 

she could. She helped to keep house in 
the bare little hut that was their only 
home, and when she was older she found 
employment in the village, going out to 
help in harvesting the rye, and receiving a 
bundle of the grain once in a while as her 
wages. She was a merry little girl in spite 
of the hard work, her dreary home, the 
deep snow, and the iron frosts. She made 
the long darkness bright with her own 
sunshine, but each day she saw her father 
growing more and more sad. He had tried 
to serve his emperor truly and well. His 
banishment to Siberia was due to a mis- 
take, but the Russian government was so 
despotic that he could not see his way to 
freedom. 

Prascovia had not understood this when 
she was younger. When she was fifteen 
she saw that her father was growing bent 
and gray with his grief. Then a wonderful 
thought came to her. Although she had 
not been away from Siberia for years, she 
made up her mind that, now, she would go. 
She had decided to make the long journey 


66 THE GIRL WHO SAVED HER FATHER 


to the capitol city of Russia, Saint Peters- 
burg. Here she would beg the emperor of 
all Russia to pardon her father, Captain 
Loopolof. 

Prascovia dreamed of her journey as she 
walked over the snow between the dark 
pine trees. When she asked her father and 
mother if she might go, it seemed as if they 
could not let her. 

“You will not be able to obtain a 
passport,” they said, “ and without one you 
will be at once returned to Siberia.” 

“I will write to Saint Petersburg for 
one,” she said. 

And after a long wait of six months 
Prascovia received a passport from the 
capitol, so that she was able to begin 
preparation for the journey. 

There was not much, though, that she 
could do to get ready. Very early in the 
morning she dressed in her poor, coarse 
clothes and slung a bag of food over her 
shoulder. They had one silver rouble, that 
was all ; and her father begged her to take 
it. Some of the poorest exiles gave her 


THE GIRL WHO SAVED HER FATHER 67 

what little money they had, too, a handful 
of copper kopeks. So Prascovia started 
away, alone, to find her emperor. 

She had to walk, and it was very cold 
and lonely. She often lost her way in the 
long stretches of dark, silent forests. The 
winter began to come on, and with it an 
eight days’ snow storm so that Prascovia 
was obliged to beg shelter in a peasant’s 
hut until it was over. Robbers stole her 
money, and it seemed to the girl that 
there was no use in her starting on again. 

There were no railways, even if Pras- 
covia had been able to pay for a ticket on 
a train. Most of the traffic was carried on 
by means of sleds, and one day a convoy 
of these came to the post station near 
where the girl had been obliged to stop 
her journey. 

They were going along the route toward 
Saint Petersburg, and when she found this 
out, Prascovia fell on her knees at the feet 
of the head trader. 

“Take me with you!” she begged. “I 
must see my emperor and ask him to 


68 THE GIRL WHO SAVED HER FATHER 

pardon my father. Oh, help me to find my 
emperor,” she begged. 

It was impossible to resist the girl’s 
pleading. The traders were rough men but 
kind, and they let her jump into one of the 
sledges and cover herself with the wrap- 
ping of a bale of goods. So she took up 
the journey again. 

Now, it was real winter. At night the 
sky was sown with glittering stars, and 
the sledges creaked as they slid over the 
thick ice crust of the snow. Prascovia’s 
clothes were too thin for such weather; 
first she felt very cold, and then quite 
numb and sleepy. 

“How quiet the child is,” thought the 
sledge driver. When they drove to the 
next post station, they had to lift Pras- 
covia from the sledge and carry her into 
the hut for she was almost frozen to death. 
They knew how to take care of her, though. 
They rubbed her hands and feet and her 
pale little face. They gave her hot drinks, 
and soon she opened her eyes and smiled 
at these kind friends. When they started 


THE GIRL WHO SAVED HER FATHER 


69 


on again the drivers made Prascovia wear 
their sheepskin coats in turn, getting out 
of the sledges and walking along beside 
the horses so that they, themselves, might 
not freeze. 

Soon they came to the end of the 
sledge route. Saint Petersburg was nearer, 
but there was still a long stretch of little 
villages and towns through which Pras- 
covia must walk. It had been a hard 
winter, and the cold was not yet over. 
One day as Prascovia trudged along over 
the snow she suddenly fell. When she 
opened her eyes, she was tucked up in 
a warm bed beside the wall of a little 
cottage. A kind face framed in a ruffled 
white cap looked down, smiling, at her. 
This good peasant woman had found Pras- 
covia and brought her home. Prascovia 
stayed with her all the spring and the 
summer until the roads were again fit for 
sleighing. 

It was hard for Prascovia to be patient 
all this time, but she was too weak to 
travel. She helped the woman to keep 


70 THE GIRL WHO SAVED HER FATHER 

her cottage clean, the samovar shining, 
and the garden trim and neat. Everyone 
in the village grew to know the little girl 
with the long, dark braids, wistful brown 
eyes, and patient smile. They were poor 
people themselves, with very little money, 
but they brought her gifts. At the end of 
her first year away from her father and 
mother in Siberia, Prascovia started on 
again toward Saint Petersburg. Before 
long she reached the great city, all white 
and gold, and with its minarets and 
mosques shining in the sun. 

It seemed to Prascovia that now her 
troubles were over, but this was not so. 
Everyone she met was richly dressed in 
velvet and furs and would not heed her. 
She was pushed this way and that, and 
nearly trampled to death under the sleighs 
full of merry makers. For weeks she sat 
on the steps of the Senate house, asking 
for an audience with the emperor, but she 
was only pushed aside and laughed at. 
The greatest kindness she received was to 
have a kopek flung at her, for the people 


THE GIRL WHO SAVED HER FATHER 71 


who passed her thought that she was a 
beggar girl. 

Prascovia was very steadfast and pa- 
tient, though. She told her story to a 
great many people, and after a while it 
came to the ears of the empress mother. 
She sent for the girl and was deeply 
touched by her love and devotion to her 
father. She gave Prascovia three hundred 
roubles. Best of all, she said that she 
would take Prascovia to the emperor. 

It was like a fairy tale come true then. 
Prascovia was dressed in the beautiful, rich 
clothes that other Russian girls wear. Her 
hair, that floated over her shoulders like a 
long, dark veil, was fastened with a gold 
band. With the empress mother and ladies 
of state, she went to the great throne room 
of the palace. 

The gold and jewels, the long flight of 
steps that led up to the glittering throne, 
the emperor in his dazzling crown and 
ermine robe looking down at her, almost 
blinded Prascovia. She did not know that 
the eyes of the court were wet with tears 
when they saw her come in and kneel down 


72 THE GIRL WHO SAVED HER FATHER 

at the throne steps. She could scarcely 
hear the emperor as he bade her rise and 
take from his hand her father’s pardon. 

Prascovia might have sent the pardon 
to Siberia and waited in Saint Petersburg, 
a happy guest of the empress mother, until 
her father and mother came for her. She 
did not want to do this. She wanted to put 
the pardon into her father’s hands herself, 
so she took the long journey back home 
again. 

It was quite like a triumph journey, 
though. Prascovia had money enough to 
travel all the way in comfort. Everyone 
wanted to help her, for all Russia knew of 
what she had done for her father. At the 
post stations children waited for her with 
gifts. She was like a little queen going 
home to her Kingdom. 

It made Captain Loopolof young and 
joyful again to know that his emperor had 
pardoned him and reinstated him in the 
army. His greatest happiness, though, was 
in his daughter’s devotion. She is the girl 
of all history who honored her father the 
most. 


THE BOY WHO LIKED GEOGRAPHY 

CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

He was born almost five hundred years 
ago in Genoa, an Italian city that looks 
down on the blue sea. His name was 
Christopher, and he was more interested 
in geography than in anything else. 

There was a good deal in the way of 
pleasure for an Italian boy to do in those 
long ago days. The other lads of Genoa 
drove their donkeys up and down the 
steep, narrow streets, ran races and sailed 
boats in the bay, and climbed the orange 
and fig trees when the luscious fruit was 
ripe. Christopher spent very little time 
playing, though. He was very poor and 
he had to work hard to help his family, 
but when he had a little spare time he 
read every word that he could find about 
geography. He found it more exciting than 
a boy of today finds the story of Robinson 
Crusoe. People in those days knew really 
very little about the earth on which they 

73 


74 


THE BOY WHO LIKED GEOGRAPHY 


lived. They thought that the earth was 
flat, like a sheet of paper, because all that 
they could see of it looked flat. Christopher 
grew up thi nk ing that there was not much 
of the world except Italy and Spain, and a 
few other countries about which he had 
studied. He had been taught, too, that if 
one went far enough one would have to 
jump off into space, for the earth would 
stop in a kind of jumping off place. 

Christopher was one of the bravest 
boys in Genoa, though, and when he had 
an opportunity he would go out to sea as 
far as the ships that left the docks of 
Genoa could carry him. Once he was ship- 
wrecked and almost drowned, but this did 
not affect his courage or his curiosity about 
the earth at all. One reason for this was 
that a strange idea had come into Chris- 
topher’s clever mind. 

He noticed that when he sailed far 
enough out to sea and looked back, the 
white houses and green hills of Genoa dis- 
appeared from his view altogether. He 
knew that he was not far enough out to 


THE BOY WHO LIKED GEOGRAPHY 


75 


be near the end of the earth that he had 
heard about all his life. 

“I wonder if the earth is round like 
an orange or a pomegranate,” Christopher 
asked himself, “and if it is the curving of 
the earth’s surface that makes me lose 
sight of Genoa?” 

Everyone laughed at Christopher when 
he suggested that the earth might be round. 

“ In that case we haven’t seen all of it, 
or put it all in our geographies,” they said. 

“That is just what I believe is true,” 
Christopher said. “I want to sail to the 
end of the sea and find out for myself.” 

And so, although no one could believe 
that the earth was round instead of flat, 
the rich people of Genoa fitted out a ship 
for Christopher to go in and look for new 
lands. He was grown to a man now. We 
know him as Christopher Columbus, and 
he started out on his great adventure. 

The ship was too small for Christopher 
Columbus to sail in as far as he wished. 
He went to Portugal in it and asked the 
King to help him by giving him a larger 


76 


THE BOY WHO LIKED GEOGRAPHY 


ship. The King of Portugal was already 
sending ships and men to explore the coast 
of Africa and he was interested in Colum- 
bus’ idea. He was wicked and deceitful, 
though. As he kept Columbus waiting 
with false promises, he sent an expedition 
out to sea to go in exactly the same direc- 
tion that Columbus had intended sailing. 
His ships turned back because his men 
had not the courage of Columbus. 

Then Columbus appealed to King Fer- 
dinand of Spain for help in carrying out 
his great adventure. Spain was at war 
and there was not much money in the 
court treasury to waste on so wild a 
scheme as this one seemed to be. Colum- 
bus grew so poor as he waited that he 
was obliged to beg food, but at last Queen 
Isabella began to have faith in the brave 
adventurer. She sent for Columbus and 
caused three small ships to be fitted and 
put at his service. 

Columbus set sail on Friday, the third 
of August, in the year 1492. It was a 
more strange and wonderful voyage than 


THE BOY WHO LIKED GEOGRAPHY 


77 


any that had ever been taken before. No 
chart or compass could help him very 
well, for so far as he knew, he was sailing 
seas that no other mariner had ever sailed 
before. 

His crew grew frightened and mutinous 
and tried to turn back. Columbus’ greatest 
difficulty was in keeping their courage and 
making them obey his orders. They sailed 
for two months and a week. Finally, on 
the night of October eleventh, 1492, Colum- 
bus saw the first light from land shining 
out through the darkness. 

Columbus’ dream had come true. The 
earth was not flat, but round. There was 
no lands’ end from which his little sailing 
vessels would plunge into space. Land was 
in sight, he thought, and the next morning 
with the first ray of light he found that 
this was true. 

Before him lay a beautiful island, almost 
as lovely as the lands he had left so long 
before. Strange dark people who had never 
seen a white race before or ships like those 
of Columbus ran down to the edge of 


78 


THE BOY WHO LIKED GEOGRAPHY 


the water to greet him and bring him 
presents. 

Columbus dressed himself in rich clothes 
and, carrying the flag of Spain, landed 
followed by his wondering crew. Together 
they knelt on the sand as Columbus 
planted the banner and took possession 
of the new world he had found in the 
name of the King of Spain. 

It was one of the islands of America 
that Christopher Columbus had discovered. 
He found another island which is called 
Cuba and a third named Hayti now. One 
of his ships was wrecked and he used the 
waste wood to build a fort on the island of 
Hayti. That was Columbus’ first voyage, 
but he made others, discovering more 
islands each time. 

Columbus’ courage seems greater as his 
first trip across the uncharted sea is farther 
away from us in the years. He began by 
learning all he could about his own land 
and he ended by giving us our own beloved 
land of America. 


THE MAN WHO CAPTURED LIGHT- 
NING 

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

If we could have been in the quaint 
old Quaker city of Philadelphia the middle 
of the eighteenth century, we might have 
heard about a man whom a good many 
people were making fun of. His name was 
Benjamin Franklin. 

America was still so young then as to 
have a good many old world notions. This 
was especially true of the gray gowned 
people of Philadelphia. They had very little 
interest in anything new and they believed 
in doing things in about the same way that 
they had been done for the last hundred 
years or so. 

All Philadelphia laughed at Mr. Frank- 
lin’s invention of a broom. It happened to 
be the first broom of its kind in America, 
and it had taken Mr. Franklin a year to 
make, for it had to be grown first. He 
had been down at the wharf one day, a 

79 


80 THE MAN WHO CAPTURED LIGHTNING 

kin d faced man in a long cloak and with 
his hair worn long as was the custom in 
those days. As he watched the ships from 
England unloading their cargoes, he saw 
some rush baskets that had brought fruit 
and now lay empty on the wet boards. 
The rushes had sprouted and sent out 
shoots. 

Mr. Franklin took the shoots home and 
planted them in his garden and in a year 
he had a fine crop of broom corn. He 
dried this and bound it in brushes that he 
called brooms. 

When the housekeepers of Philadelphia 
found out how easy it was to sweep up the 
dirt with a broom, they stopped laughing 
and thanked Benjamin Franklin for his very 
useful invention. 

But people who passed by the Frank- 
lin house one day brought back strange 
reports of what they had seen going on in 
the garden. 

“Mr. Franklin is making a kite,” they 
said. 

He had never done anything quite so 


THE MAN WHO CAPTURED LIGHTNING 81 

unusual as that, but those who heard about 
it tried to explain it. 

“Of course the kite is for some boy 
whom Mr. Franklin knows,” they said and 
thought no more about it. But in June of 
the year 1752 a still stranger story was 
told about Benjamin Franklin. 

“ Mr. Franklin is flying a kite,” passers- 
by said. There seemed to be no explanation 
to this, for it was quite true. 

He went out in a thunderstorm which 
made this fact of a grown man sailing a 
kite seem still more strange. He had made 
his kite of a large silk handkerchief and 
had fastened a thin wire to the top of the 
stick. He tied a string to the kite, and 
near his hand he attached a silk ribbon to 
the string. Where the string and ribbon 
joined he fixed a large metal key. There 
was a secret connected with this strange 
kite. 

Benjamin Franklin had been thinking a 
great deal about electricity and he won- 
dered where it came from. Although every 
one laughed at him when he spoke of it, he 


82 THE MAN WHO CAPTURED LIGHTNING 

believed that electricity and the lightning 
which flashed across the sky might be one 
and the same. He had this in mind when 
he made his kite. 

As the storm began to gather, Benjamin 
Franklin took his kite to a field quite a 
distance from his house. There was an old 
cow shed there but very few houses near, 
so no one would see if he failed in his 
experiment. He held his kite up and the 
wind caught it, carrying it up in the air. 
The string was of hemp all except the silk 
end which he held in his hand. In the 
shed Mr. Franklin put a Leyden bottle. 
This was a jar of water, charged with 
electricity, and having a metal stopper 
through which an iron rod ran inside the 
bottle. If there were any electricity in the 
air it would be caught by the Leyden jar, 
Mr. Franklin knew. 

No one was watching, and Mr. Franklin 
was very glad of this. Deep down in his 
heart he felt badly because the people of 
Philadelphia ridiculed his strange ideas. 
Sometimes there are seers and wizards in 


THE MAN WHO CAPTURED LIGHTNING 83 

every day life instead of only in the fairy 
tales. Benjamin Franklin was both a seer 
and a wizard. He could see wonders in 
commonplace things that others could not 
see. He could use common things in bring- 
ing about wonders. 

The first thundercloud passed over Mr. 
Franklin’s kite without any effect. He was 
very anxious as he stood and waited for 
the next one. Then there came a second 
thunder clap. Suddenly the fibers of the 
hemp cord began to stir and rise and Mr. 
Franklin felt his fingers tingle and pulled 
by it. It was hard for him to believe that 
he had found out what lightning is, but he 
put his finger to the key on the kite string. 
He started, for he felt quite a strong electric 
shock. Then rain began to pour down and 
wet the kite string. And down the wet 
string poured real electricity that filled the 
Leyden jar. 

This discovery was a great triumph for 
Benjamin Franklin and a help to the world. 
News of it went across the ocean to 
Europe and the name of Benjamin Franklin 


84 THE MAN WHO CAPTURED LIGHTNING 

suddenly became one of the most famous 
in the world. He made other trials and 
discovered that some clouds are full of 
positive and some of negative electricity. 
When he was sure that it was possible to 
gather electricity from the air he went to 
work to try to protect houses from being 
burned by lightning. 

He set to work to make lightning con- 
ductors and was very successful indeed 
about it. He put lightning rods on houses 
which drew the electricity from the sky but 
directed it down into the ground. Before 
Benjamin Franklin’s invention of the light- 
ning rod a great many houses had been 
destroyed during each thunder storm. They 
began to put up lightning rods in France 
and no one made fun of Mr. Franklin any 
longer. Whenever we see a kite sailing 
unusually high now, we think of the kite 
that Franklin used to reach lightning and 
chain it to the earth. 


THE BOY WHO WAS TRUE 

GEORGE WASHINGTON 

When little George was five years old 
his father moved from Pope’s Creek in 
Virginia, where the child had been born, 
and went to live on another of his estates 
on the Rappahannock River. 

It was a splendid country with wide 
unbroken forests stretching out to east 
and west. In these great forests, standing 
so thick with trees that scarcely a gleam 
of sunlight could creep in, all kinds of 
birds and beasts had their homes. In the 
shadowy stillness there were other moving 
forms besides the animals that crept quietly 
and stealthily about. 

These forests were the hunting grounds 
of the Indians and their canoes, too, might 
be seen shooting about the rivers. As yet 
they were quite friendly toward the white 
family who had come to settle so close 
to them, but at any moment they might 
become enemies. 


85 


86 


THE BOY WHO WAS TRUE 


Every now and then news would come 
from other parts of the country of the 
terrible deeds done by the Indians to the 
white settlers. George would listen to 
these tales of cruelty until it was hard 
to feel quite brave. Those same Indians, 
he knew, were lurking in the forests close 
by. They stole like silent shadows across 
his path. They were as noiseless and mys- 
terious in their ways as the forest animals 
themselves. 

But there were pleasant open places 
around the house for George to play in 
without wandering into the shadows of the 
great forests. There was an apple orchard 
besides the garden and fields, and in spring- 
time it was like fairyland with its pale pink 
blossoms against the blue sky. That was 
very beautiful to look at, but it was in 
autumn that George loved the orchard best. 
Then the trees were loaded with great rosy- 
cheeked apples, and the ground beneath 
was covered with “tumble-downs.” 

George had gone one day to the orchard 
with his father and two of his cousins, and 


THE BOY WHO WAS TRUE 


87 


the sight of the apples made him dance 
with joy. 

“ Father,” he cried, “ did you ever in all 
your life see so many apples before ? ” 

“ There certainly are a great many,” his 
father said. “Do you remember what I 
told you in the spring when your cousin 
gave you a large apple and you wanted 
to eat it all up yourself instead of sharing it 
with your brothers and sisters? I told you 
then that you should be generous, and God 
would send us many more apples in the fall.” 

George hung his head. He remembered 
quite well. The sight of all these apples 
made him quite ashamed of himself now. 
It was not very easy to own that he had 
been greedy, and that he was sorry. But 
he was a good fighter and at last he won 
the victory. 

“ I am sorry now, father,” he said, “ and 
if you will forgive me this time, you will 
see that I shall never be stingy again.” 

That was the kind of lesson his father 
wanted him to learn, and it was the kind 
of teaching that George never forgot. 


88 


THE BOY WHO WAS TRUE 


When spring came George was much 
excited one day, when he went out to the 
garden, to find that the cabbage bed had 
begun to show green shoots, and that the 
green formed the letters of his name, 
“George Washington.” He stood for a few 
moments quite silent, his eyes and mouth 
wide open in astonishment. Surely it was 
magic ! 

“Father, father!” he shouted. "Oh, 
father, do come and see.” 

“What is the matter?” asked his 
father. 

“The cabbages are coming up, and are 
writing my name,” cried George. 

“Very curious,” said his father. 

“But who did it?” asked George. 

“ I suppose they just grew so,” said his 
father. “Don’t you think they came up by 
chance ? ” 

“They couldn’t,” said George. “They 
wouldn’t know how to grow that way 
unless someone had made them.” 

“You are quite right,” said his father. 
“Nothing grows by chance. I planted 


THE BOY WHO WAS TRUE 


89 


those cabbages in that way to teach you a 
lesson. There is someone who plans every- 
thing. All the thousands of good things 
you enjoy, the sunshine and the flowers, 
eyes to see with, ears to hear with, feet to 
carry you about, all are planned by God, 
and chance has nothing to do with it.” 

George was only eight years old when 
he learned that lesson, but he never forgot 
it all the rest of his life. 

It was about this time that George was 
given a little hatchet. He went about the 
garden chopping any old pieces of wood 
that he could find, when his eye fell on 
a beautiful English cherry tree, and this 
seemed the very thing on which to try his 
new present. 

So he chopped away until not only the 
bark was off the tree but the wood under- 
neath was hacked and cut to pieces. 

The next day his father happened to 
pass by that way and caught sight of his 
favorite cherry tree. He was very angry 
when he saw the mischief that had been 
done, and he went at one© to ask everyone 


90 


THE BOY WHO WAS TRUE 


in the house if he or she knew who had 
done it. 

“ My beautiful cherry tree is ruined,” he 
said. “Who could have hacked it in that 
way ? ” 

No one knew anything about it. None 
of the servants had been near the tree. 

Just then George came in with his 
hatchet in his hand. 

“George,” said his father sternly, “do 
you know who has killed that cherry tree 
in the garden ? ” 

Until that moment George had never 
thought of the harm he had done the tree. 
Hearing his father’s voice and seeing his 
troubled face, the boy suddenly knew the 
mischief that he had done and hung his 
head. 

“George, did you do it?” asked his 
father. 

It was all very frightening. George was 
only a little boy and his father was very 
angry. The whole household waited to 
hear what he had to say for him self. It 
was not easy to be brave but George man- 


THE BOY WHO WAS TRUE 


91 


fully lifted his head and looked straight at 
his father. 

“I can’t tell a lie, father,” he said. “I 
did it with my hatchet.” 

So the boy spoke out bravely and truly, 
risking anything that might happen. But 
he need not have been afraid. His father 
would rather have lost a hundred cherry 
trees than that his son should have told 
one lie. 

It was only right that a boy who came 
of a soldierly race, and who meant, himself, 
to be a soldier some day, should learn the 
truest bravery of all. It was a better 
preparation for him even than drilling his 
playmates and fighting mimic battles, as 
he was fond of doing. 

His big brother Lawrence had joined 
the army and gone away to fight King 
George’s battles against the Spaniards. 
George wished that he too were old enough 
to wear a uniform and carry a sword. 

But all this was still in the future. 
Meanwhile George went steadily on, learn- 
ing all he could, both at school and at 


92 


THE BOY WHO WAS TRUE 


home. He was as upright and brave and 
truthful as a boy could be. Besides that 
he learned how to be methodical so that he 
did far more work than most boys could 
manage. His teachers soon found out that 
he was no ordinary boy, and they felt sure 
that a great future was ahead of him. 
They were right. 

He was a Great American, and America’s 
first President. Besides being an example 
of bravery and truthfulness to all children, 
he lived to a very great and good man, and 
there is no name in America more honored 
or loved than that of George Washington. 

Amy Steedman. Copyright by Frederick A. Stokes & Co. 


PAUL REVERE’S RIDE 


Listen, my children, and you shall hear 
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere, 

On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five; 

Hardly a man is now alive 

Who remembers that famous day and year. 

He said to his friend, “If the British march 
By land or sea from the town tonight, 
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch 
Of the North Church tower as a signal 
light,— 

One, if by land, and two, if by sea; 

And I on the opposite shore will be, 
Ready to ride and spread the alarm 
Through every Middlesex village and farm, 
For the country folk to be up and arm.” 

Then he said, “Good night!” and with 
muffled oar 

Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore, 
Just as the moon rose over the bay, 
Where swinging wide at her moorings lay 

93 


94 


PAUL REVERE’S RIDE 


The Somerset, British man-of-war; 

A phantom ship, with each mast and spar 
Across the moon like a prison bar, 

And a huge black hulk, that was magnified 
By its own reflection in the tide. 

Meanwhile, his friend, through alley and 
street, 

Wanders and watches with eager ears, 

Till in the silence around him he hears 
The muster of men at the barrack door, 
The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet, 
And the measured tread of the grenadiers, 
Marching down to their boats on the shore. 

Then he climbed the tower of the Old 
North Church, 

By the wooden stairs with stealthy tread, 
To the belfry chamber overhead, 

And startled the pigeons from their perch 
On the somber rafters, that round him 
made 

Masses and moving shapes of shade, — 

By the trembling ladder, steep and tall, 

To the highest window in the wall, 


PAUL REVERE’S RIDE 


95 


Where he paused to listen and look down 
A moment on the roofs of the town, 

And the moonlight flowing over all. 

Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead, 
In their night encampment on the hill, 
Wrapped in silence so deep and still 
That he could hear, like a sentinel’s tread, 
The watchful night wind, as it went 
Creeping along from tent to tent, 

And seeming to whisper, “All is well ! ” 

A moment only he feels the spell 

Of the place, the hour and the secret dread 

Of the lonely belfry and the dead; 

For suddenly all his thoughts are bent 
On a shadowy something far away, 

Where the river widens to meet the bay. 
A line of black that bends and floats 
On the rising tide like a bridge of boats. 

Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride, 
Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride 
On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere. 
Now he patted his horse’s side, 

Now gazed at the landscape far and near, 


96 


PAUL REVERE’S RIDE 


Then, impetuous, stamped the earth, 

And turned and tightened his saddle girth ; 
But mostly he watched with eager search 
The belfry tower of the Old North Church, 
As it rose above the graves on the hill, 
Lonely and spectre and somber and still. 
And lo ! as he looked on the belfry’s height 
A glimmer, and then a gleam of light! 

He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns, 
But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight 
A second lamp in the belfry burns! 

A hurry of hoofs in a village street, 

A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the 
dark, 

And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, 
a spark 

Struck out by a steed flying fearless and 
fleet : 

That was all ! And yet, through the gloom 
and the light, 

The fate of a nation was riding that night ; 
And the spark struck out by that steed in 
his flight, 

Kindled the land into flame with its heat. 


PAUL REVERE’S RIDE 


97 


He has left the village and mounted the 
steep, 

And beneath him, tranquil and broad and 
deep, 

Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides; 
And under the alders that skirt its edge, 
Now soft on the land, now loud on the 
ledge 

Is heard the tramp of his steed as he rides. 

It was twelve by the village clock 
When he crossed the bridge into Medford 
town. 

He heard the crowing of the cock, 

And the barking of the farmer’s dog, 

And felt the damp of the river fog, 

That rises after the sun goes down. 

It was one by the village clock 
When he galloped into Lexington. 

He saw the gilded weathercock 
Swim in the moonlight as he passed, 

And the meeting house windows, blank 
and bare, 

Gaze at him with a spectral glare. 


98 


PAUL REVERE’S RIDE 


As if they already stood aghast 

At the bloody work they would look upon. 

It was two by the village clock, 

When he came to the bridge in Concord 
town. 

He heard the bleating of the flock, 

And the twitter of birds among the trees, 
And felt the breath of the morning breeze 
Blowing over the meadows brown. 

And one was safe and asleep in his bed 
Who at the bridge would be first to fall, 
Who that day would be lying dead, 
Pierced by a British musket ball. 

You know the rest. In the books you have 
read, 

How the British Regulars fired and fled,— 
How the farmers gave them ball for ball 
From behind each fence and barnyard 
wall, 

Chasing the redcoats down the lane, 

Then crossing the fields to emerge again. 
Under the trees at the turn of the road, 
And only pausing to fire and load. 


PAUL REVERE’S RIDE 


99 


So through the night rode Paul Revere ; 
And so through the night went his call of 
alarm 

To every Middlesex village and farm,— 

A cry of defiance and not of fear, 

A voice in the darkness, a knock on the 
door, 

And a word that shall echo forevermore ! 
For, borne on the night wind of the Past, 
Through all our history, to the last, 

In the hour of darkness and peril and need, 
The people will waken and listen to hear 
The hurrying hoof beats of that steed, 
And the midnight ride of Paul Revere. 

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

By permission of and special arrangement with Houghton, Mifflin 
& Company. 


THE LOG CABIN BOY 

ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

How would you like to have begun life 
in a little log cabin set in the midst of a 
western wilderness ? Suppose, too, that 
the cabin had no window and so many 
cracks that it let in the winter winds and 
even the snow ! 

That was how little Abe first saw life 
a long time ago, in February of 1809. It 
was a rough life for a small boy. Even his 
mother had to know how to shoot, for the 
cabin was in the woods where wild beasts 
and Indians surrounded it. There was 
nothing to eat except what Abe’s father 
raised or hunted. They had nothing to 
wear except the cloth his mother spun 
and wove, or the skins of animals. 

By the time little Abe was six years 
old, though, he had learned more than a 
boy of that age today. He could fish and 
hunt. He was not afraid of Indians. He 
could catch hold of a sycamore tree on 
100 


THE LOG CABIN BOY 


101 


the edge of the brook outside the cabin, 
and swing himself way across the brook. 

But little Abe’s father was not satisfied 
with his boy’s knowing only how to live 
an outdoor life. He could not read himself, 

1 but it was his great longing that little Abe 
should have this knowledge. 

It was when Abe was seven years old 
and his sister, Sarah, a year younger, that 
their father spoke about this. 

“ I want the children to learn to read," 
he said. “There is a man in a shanty down 
the road who knows how. He can’t write, 
but he could teach Abe and Sarah their 
letters.” 

So the two little folks started off, Abe 
in a linsey-woolsey suit, buckskin breeches, 
anda, coon skin cap. It was a long walk, 
and the children had only hoe cake to 
carry for their dinner, but they were strong 
and sturdy. They were clever, too. In a 
few weeks, Abe knew as much as the 
i school master. Then he began to wish, oh, 
so much, that he had some books to read 
at home in the cabin. 


102 


THE LOG CABIN BOY 


There was a Bible at home, an old 
catechism and a spelling book. Abe read 
these over and over again in the dim 
candle light of the cabin. One day his 
father surprised him. He brought him a 
new book. It was Pilgrim’s Progress, the 
most wonderful story, little Abe thought, 
that he had ever read. It was only a bor- 
rowed book ; books cost a very great deal 
of money in those long ago days, more 
than Mr. Lincoln could pay. He was able 
to borrow more, though. Little Abe read 
Aesop’s fables, and he liked them so much 
that he learned the stories by heart. He 
could tell the fable of the Hare and the 
Tortoise, the Crow and the Pitcher, and 
many others. 

It made Abe so happy to have these 
books that he made up his mind to try to 
do something, in return, to surprise his 
father. It was spring of the year and Abe 
and his father were plowing, turning up 
the soft brown earth, ready for the new 
seeds. Mr. Lincoln missed his boy. He 
looked back, and what do you think he 



Abe had spelled with a stick in the soft, brown 
earth, his own name. 





THE LOG CABIN BOY 


103 


saw ? Abe had spelled with a stick, in the 
soft brown earth, his own name. His father 
had not known that he could write, but 
there were the letters as plainly outlined as 
if they had been in a copy book : Abraham 
Lincoln. 

He had taught himself to write by prac- 
ticing in the snow, and making letters on 
the logs of the cabin walls with pieces of 
charcoal. 

A great deal began to happen now to 
Abraham, although he was only eight years 
old. His father decided to travel a hundred 
miles from Kentucky to a new farm in 
Indiana to see if he might not be a little 
more prosperous. There were no railroads. 
There was not even a stage route. They 
packed their bedding on two horses and 
set out on the journey overland. It took 
seven days, sleeping on the ground under 
the stars at night. And when they reached 
the new home, there was not even a shelter 
waiting for them. A road had been cut 
through the forests, but all the clearing was 
yet to be done. 


104 


THE LOG CABIN BOY 


Abraham had an axe of his own and 
he went to work with it. He was a true 
pioneer boy, though, and not one bit afraid 
of work. He cut poles while his father laid 
the foundations of the new cabin. They 
were only able to put up a “half-faced” 
camp at first, with three sides and one side 
open. And it was hard work. The great, 
unhewn logs had to be all notched and 
fitted together, and the cracks filled in 
with clay. They made a loft, and fitted in 
a door and a window. Abraham learned 
how to make a table and some stools. 
Then, after the bitter winter was over, the 
spring brought them more comfort and 
happiness. The corn and vegetables they 
planted came up, and Abraham had a little 
time to read again. 

He had a new book, now, that a neigh- 
bor had let him take. It was the story of 
a boy who had, also, in his little boy days, 
an axe like Abraham’s; but he had used 
it to cut down his father’s cherry tree. 
When he had grown to be a man, though, 
he was our Great American. Abraham took 


THE LOG CABIN BOY 


105 


this book, the Life of George Washington, 
to bed with him and read it when the 
snow was sifting in through the cabin roof 
and over his quilt. He read the book many 
times. 

“What are you going to be when you 
grow up ? ” the neighbor asked Abraham. 

“I am going to be the President of the 
United States,” the boy replied. 

Everyone thought this a very good joke 
for Abraham was growing up now. He 
had legs that were too long for his body 
and it was the same way with his arms. 
He was almost six feet tall although he 
was not yet fifteen years old. His head, 
set on top of his long neck, looked almost 
out of place. People laughed when they 
compared him with other Presidents of the 
United States. 

Abraham kept his thought in his mind, 
though, and he went on working, and read- 
ing when he had time in the firelight of 
the long winter evenings. As he threshed, 
and chopped, and plowed, he could not 
help dreaming a little. All his life he had 


106 


THE LOG CABIN BOY 


worked hard for others, and he really liked 
this kind of work more than any other. 
He wanted to go on helping others only in 
a greater, broader way. 

We all know what happened to Abra- 
ham Lincoln. His dream came true. He 
was our noblest President and carried on 
his broad shoulders the burdens of the 
slaves. It was a long road from the 
little log cabin in Kentucky to the White 
House at Washington, but President Lin- 
coln, himself, tells us how he made the 
journey. 

He was visiting, once, a hospital full of 
wounded soldiers. There were several thou- 
sand of them, and each one of them loved 
Mr. Lincoln so that he wanted to shake 
hands with him. He took and held the 
hand of each. It was enough to cripple 
an ordinary man, but Mr. Lincoln’s kind, 
plain face was smiling when someone asked 
if he were tired. 

“Oh, no,” he said. “The hardships of 
my boyhood made me strong.” 

Very likely, too, it was the struggles of 


THE LOG CABIN BOY 


107 


learning to write on bare boards and in 
the earth that helped Abraham Lincoln to 
write his name in letters of gold on our 
history pages. 


BARBARA FRIETCHIE 


Up from the meadows sweet with corn, 
Clear in the cool September morn, 

The clustered spires of Frederick stand 
Green-walled by the hills of Maryland. 

Round about them orchards sweep, 

Apple and peach tree fruited deep. 

Fair as the garden of the Lord 

To the eyes of the famished rebel horde, 

On that pleasant morn of the early fall 
When Lee marched over the mountain- 
wall,— 

Over the mountain, winding down, 

Horse and foot, into Frederick town. 

Forty flags with their silver stars, 

Forty flags with their crimson bars, 

Flapped in the morning wind : the sun 
Of noon looked down, and saw not one. 
108 


BARBARA FRIETCHIE 


109 


Up rose Barbara Frietchie then, 

Bowed with her fourscore years and ten ; 

Bravest of all in Frederick town, 

She took up the flag the men hauled down. 

In the attic window the staff she set, 

To show that one heart was loyal yet. 

Up the street came the rebel tread, 
Stonewall Jackson riding ahead. 

Under his slouched hat left and right 
He glanced : the old flag met his sight. 

“Halt!” — the dust-brown ranks stood fast. 
“Fire!” — out blazed the rifle-blast. 

It shivered the window, pane and sash ; 

It rent the banner with seam and gash. 

Quick, as it fell, from the broken staff 
Dame Barbara snatched the silken scarf. 

She leaned far out on the window-sill, 
And shook it forth with a royal will. 


110 


BARBARA FRIETCHIE 


“Shoot, if you must, this old gray head, 
But spare your country’s flag,” she said. 

A shade of sadness, a blush of shame 
Over the face of the leader came; 

The nobler nature within him stirred 
To life at that woman’s deed and word: 

“Who touches a hair of yon gray head 
Dies like a dog ! March on ! ” he said. 

All day long through Frederick street 
Sounded the tread of marching feet: 

All day long that free flag tossed 
Over the heads of the rebel host. 

Ever its torn folds rose and fell 
On the loyal winds that loved it well. 

And through the hill-gap’s sunset light 
Shone over it with a warm goodnight. 

Barbara Frietchie’s work is o’er, 

And the rebel rides on his raids no more 


BARBARA FRIETCHIE 


111 


Over Barbara Frietchie’s grave, 

Flag of Freedom and Union, wave ! 

Peace and order and beauty draw 
Round thy symbol of light and law; 

And ever the stars above look down 
On thy stars below in Frederick town ! 

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

By permission of and special arrangement with Houghton, Mifflin 
& Co. 


THE GIRL WHO WROTE UNCLE 
TOM’S CABIN 

HARRIET BEECHER STOWE 

It did not seem as if there were room 
enough in the little white house in Litch- 
field, Connecticut, for another baby. The 
Beechers had six little ones already, but 
when Harriet came everyone was glad to 
see her. They decided that they had all 
needed her very much and they began 
loving her with all their hearts. 

It didn’t matter that their father, who 
was a minister, had scarcely enough money 
to fill all the hungry mouths in the home 
nest. Harriet’s mother taught school to 
help her father, but she found time to 
make the most delightful rag dolls for 
little Harriet, and to read her stories, and 
take the best care of all the family. 

Harriet soon grew to be a gay little 
girl with blue eyes and brown curls. She 
was as happy as if she had been a little 
princess, and she spent enchanted days 

l!2 


GIRL WHO WROTE UNCLE TOM’S CABIN 113 

roaming over the meadows and the forest. 
She gathered wild flowers in the spring 
and nuts in the fall. She learned to know 
all the treasures of outdoors. There were 
the crisp apples of the pink azalea, honey 
suckle apples people called them. There 
were scarlet wintergreen berries, the pink 
blossoms of the trailing arbutus and the 
feathery ground pine. There were blue 
and white and yellow violets to be found, 
and wild anemone blossoms, and other 
quaint treasures of the woods. 

Living and playing so much out of 
doors Harriet did not mind in the least 
the bareness of her home. There were 
not even carpets upon the floors. What 
do you think Harriet and her mother did 
one day? They laid down a piece of cotton 
cloth in the parlor and painted it in oil 
colors with a border, and a bunch of roses 
and other flowers in the center. It made 
a very fine carpet indeed even if everyone 
was afraid to step on it. 

Af ter awhile Harriet was seven years 
old and she began to be very fond of books. 


114 GIRL WHO WROTE UNCLE TOM’S CABIN 

There were not many in her father’s library ; 
he bad to spend nearly all of his salary for 
bread and butter and shoes for the children. 
But Harriet found a fat book of hymns, and 
she learned twenty-seven of them so that 
she could say them without making a mis- 
take in a word. There was another book 
that she grew to like very much. It was 
Ivanhoe, and Harriet and her brother 
George read it over seven times. 

She liked school very much indeed, and 
she found that she really enjoyed doing 
something that the other children disliked. 
She could write a composition without 
crying over it or misspelling a word. 

Although the schools in those long ago 
days were very different from ours, with 
long hard benches and longer hours and 
books with no pictures, they had one of 
the customs that we know. Once a year 
the fathers and mothers were invited to 
come to school and hear the children 
recite poems and say over some of their 
hardest lessons. If any child had written 
an especially good composition, the master 


GIRL WHO WROTE UNCLE TOM’S CABIN 115 

of the school would read it at this parents’ 
day. Of course this made the father and 
mother of the child who had written it 
very proud indeed. 

If you will close your eyes you may 
see in fancy the school in old New England 
with little Harriet among the other children 
on one of these parents’ days. Her curls 
were almost down to her waist, and they 
did not have to be done up in papers 
for they were natural curls. She wore a 
flowered dress with a ruffled skirt, and 
long white pantalettes. Her big blue eyes 
were as bright as the sky as she saw her 
father in his black suit and stiffly starched 
cravat sitting on the platform behind the 
school master. 

Not many of the children’s composi- 
tions were read, and the best one of them 
all was left for the last. When the school 
master stood up, and read the fine copper 
plate writing in which some child of the 
school had set down her thoughts on 
the Light of Nature, everyone listened 
most carefully. It was a very well written 


116 GIRL WHO WROTE UNCLE TOM’S CABIN 

composition, certainly the best of them 
all. 

“ Who wrote that composition ? ” Mr. 
Beecher asked of the school master. 

“Your daughter, sir,” was the answer. 

Nothing that ever happened to her 
when she grew up and was famous made 
Harriet Beecher Stowe so happy as the 
smile she saw on her father’s face as he 
said, “Why, Harriet!” 

Then Harriet grew up and she went to 
live in Cincinnati. She discovered some- 
thing here that made her very sad. The 
black people of the South were in slavery. 
Unhappy slaves and their little children 
fled through the free states and were 
helped into Canada by means of the under- 
ground railway. Harriet Beecher, who was 
now Mrs. Stowe with two little boys of her 
own, was sorry indeed for the slaves. She 
opened her house to the little colored chil- 
dren whom she taught with her own boys. 

One day Harriet Beecher Stowe told a 
story to her two little sons. 

It was a story that she had thought of 


GIRL WHO WROTE UNCLE TOM’S CABIN 117 


herself. It was about an old white haired 
colored man named Uncle Tom who lived 
in a little log cabin in the South. He was 
as kind and patient and good as if he had 
been born free and not a slave. He was a 
dear friend to a little golden haired girl 
named Eva who lived on the plantation 
where Uncle Tom worked. 

The two little Stowe boys thought that 
it was the best story they had ever heard, 
and they asked their mother to write it 
down. Their mother did not think that the 
world would care as much about reading 
it as had her sons in listening to the story. 
But she did make it into a book, and she 
called the book Uncle Tom’s Cabin. 

Then a strange thing happened. 

In a short time, ten thousand copies of 
the book, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, had been 
bought by ten thousand people who 
thought that it was very wonderful. It 
took eight great printing presses, working 
day and night, to get it ready for the 
book stores. They made it into a play so 
that people might see, on the stage, Uncle 


118 GIRL WHO WROTE UNCLE TOM’S CABIN 

Tom and Little Eva, as Mrs. Stowe had 
written about them. In less than a year 
three hundred thousand people had bought 
copies of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Great people 
in Europe wrote to Harriet Beecher Stowe 
and told her how much they had enjoyed 
reading her book, and when she went 
traveling people in the towns stopped her 
carriage to fill it with flowers. 

We all love books, but not many of us 
understand what makes a book read over 
and over again, when others are forgotten. 
They translated Uncle Tom’s Cabin into 
nineteen different languages. In France 
there were more Bibles sold because it 
was the book that Uncle Tom read most. 
The English people bought over one and 
a half million copies, and we can scarcely 
count the numbers of the book that Amer- 
ica has read. 

We will never forget Uncle Tom’s Cabin. 
Neither will we forget the little girl of old 
New England who learned how, although 
her hands were full of duties, to write a 
book that the whole world loves. 


THE BLUE AND THE GRAY 

By the flow of the inland river, 

Whence the fleets of iron have fled, 
Where the blades of the grave-grass quiver, 
Asleep are the ranks of the dead: — 
Under the sod and the dew, 

Waiting the Judgment Day: — 

Under the one, the Blue; 

Under the other, the Gray. 

These in the robings of glory, 

Those in the gloom of defeat, 

All with the battle-field gory, 

In the dusk of eternity meet: — 

Under the sod and the dew, 

Waiting the Judgment Day: — 

Under the laurel, the Blue; 

Under the willow, the Gray. 

From the silence of sorrowful hours, 

The desolate mourners go, 

Lovingly laden with flowers, 

Alike for the friend and the foe: — 


119 


120 


THE BLUE AND THE GRAY 


Under the sod and the dew, 
Waiting the Judgment Day: — 
Under the laurel, the Blue ; 

Under the willow, the Gray. 

So, with an equal splendor, 

The morning sun-rays fall, 

With a touch impartially tender, 
On the blossoms blooming for all 
Under the sod and the dew. 
Waiting the Judgment Day: — 
Broidered with gold, the Blue; 
Mellowed with gold, the Gray. 

So, when the summer calleth, 

On forest and field of grain, 

With an equal murmur falleth 
The cooling drip of the rain: — 
Under the sod and the dew, 
Waiting the Judgment Day: — 
Wet with the rain, the Blue; 

Wet with the rain, the Gray. 

Sadly, but not with upbraiding, 

The generous deed was done. 


THE BLUE AND THE GRAY 121 

In the storm of the years that are fading 
No braver battle was won: — 

Under the sod and the dew, 

Waiting the Judgment Day: — 

Under the blossoms, the Blue; 

Under the garlands, the Gray. 

No more shall the war-cry sever, 

Or the winding rivers be red: 

They banish our anger forever, 

When they laurel the graves of our dead ! 
Under the sod and the dew, 

Waiting the Judgment Day: — 

Love and tears for the Blue ; 

Tears and love for the Gray. 

FRANCIS MILES FINCH. 


Copyright 1909 by Henry Holt & Company. 


THE BOY WHO WANTED TO BE A 
SCULPTOR 

ANTONIO CANOVA 

His name was Antonio Canova, and he 
lived over a hundred years ago in the little 
town of Asola in the hills of Italy. 

As soon as Antonio had grown from a 
child to a little lad, he began to see the 
beautiful things in the world all about 
him. He loved to look at the colors in the 
church windows and at the strange shapes 
in the clouds that hung above him in the 
blue Italian sky. He begged his father to 
take him to see the statues that stood 
along the roadsides and in the gardens of 
the rich. He loved to pick up soft clay 
from the roadside and mould it into little 
figures with bis clever hands. 

Antonio’s mother died when he was 
still only a little boy, and he went to live 
with his grandfather, who was a stone- 
cutter. Everyone liked the motherless lad, 
and his grandfather taught him how to 
122 


BOY WHO WANTED TO BE A SCULPTOR 123 

draw because he saw that he liked to use 
his hands in making beautiful things better 
than he did to play. Antonio watched his 
grandfather cut and clip the solid stone 
until it showed wonderful forms that no 
one would have believed were hidden in it. 
When his grandfather gave him a set of 
tools, Antonio was but a little while learn- 
ing how to use them. He was only eight 
years old when he carved some pieces of 
marble so well that they were put into a 
church. 

Antonio’s grandfather could cook as 
well as carve. In the town where he lived, 
there lived also a very great and rich man 
who was a Senator. The Senator often 
gave great parties and then he would per- 
suade the stonecutter to give up his work 
for a day and come to his castle to cook 
a fine dinner. 

One day Antonio went with his grand- 
father to the Senator’s house, and they let 
him sit on one of the wooden benches 
in the kitchen while the food was being 
prepared. It seemed quite wonderful to 


124 BOY WHO WANTED TO BE A SCULPTOR 

Antonio ; there were many rich fowls, 
artichokes and lentils, peas as green as 
emeralds, olives, oranges, dark chocolate 
and sweets of all kinds. Antonio wished 
that he might help, especially when he 
saw how cleverly the pastry was being 
moulded, but everyone laughed at the little 
boy when he asked this. 

“You can’t help with the Senator’s 
dinner,” they said, “a little lad like you!” 

Just then there came the sound of a 
terrible crash in the kitchen. It came from 
the direction of the great dining ball, and 
out ran a terrified servant, wringing his 
hands. He had tried to place a valuable 
marble statue in the center of the table, 
and in doing so the statue had fallen and 
broken into hundreds of pieces. 

“ What shall I do? ” he cried. He knew 
that the Senator would be disappointed 
and very angry. 

Antonio felt like crying too. A marble 
statue seemed to him one of the most beau- 
tiful things in the world, and he could not 
bear to think of its having been destroyed. 


BOY WHO WANTED TO BE A SCULPTOR 125 

“Perhaps I can make you a statue to 
take its place,” he said. “Will you not let 
me try?” 

“You; a little lad, make a statue fit 
to stand in the center of the Senator’s 
table?” everyone cried. And Antonio, his 
eyes full of tears, went over to a corner of 
the kitchen where no one would see how 
badly he felt. 

There was a huge piece of yellow butter 
there weighing many pounds, standing on 
the kitchen table. It was hard and firm 
and as yellow as gold. Antonio looked at 
it for a moment. Then he had a strange 
thought. He took up a large knife and 
commenced to carve the butter. 

It was easier to carve in butter than 
in stone. As he cut and shaped, Antonio 
forgot where he was, but the servants left 
their work to watch him. They crowded 
about the lad, breathless, to see the wonder 
that he was working. 

In place of the great square of butter 
there stood a splendid golden lion ! Anto- 
nio had carved it. The servant who had 


126 BOY WHO WANTED TO BE A SCULPTOR 

broken the Senator’s statue was too happy 
for words. He placed the butter lion on a 
platter and carried it in to decorate the 
Senator’s dinner table. 

The Senator and his guests had never 
seen so beautiful and strange a statue. 
They could scarcely eat ; they feasted their 
eyes instead on the statue and begged to 
know what great sculptor had sent it to 
the Senator. 

“Who made the lion?” demanded the 
Senator of the servant who had brought 
it in. 

“It was made by a little lad in the 
kitchen,” the servant said, “Antonio, the 
grandson of the stonecutter.” 

The Senator could scarcely believe it. 

“Bring the boy here,” he demanded. 
“He shall be our guest of honor.” 

So Antonio, in his poor clothes and 
peasant’s shoes, was brought in and sat 
beside the Senator at the head of the 
table. It was like a fairy tale come true 
to the little lad. The Senator asked Anto- 
nio to come and live with him, and he said 


BOY WHO WANTED TO BE A SCULPTOR 127 


that he should have the best teachers in 
Italy in drawing and sculpture. In two 
years he had learned a great deal. In only 
a few years more, he was known as one of 
the greatest sculptors in the world, and his 
statues stood in cathedrals, in castles, and 
in museums of art. 

Doing his best in the kitchen had made 
Antonio Canova one of the great men of 
the world of art. 


THE VILLAGE BLACKSMITH 


Under a spreading chestnut tree 
The village smithy stands; 

The smith, a mighty man is he, 

With large and sinewy hands ; 

And the muscles of his brawny arms 
Are strong as iron bands. 

His hair is crisp, and black, and long ; 

His face is like the tan; 

His brow is wet with honest sweat, 

He earns whate’er he can, 

And looks the whole world in the face, 
For he owes not any man. 

Week in, week out, from morn till night, 
You can hear his bellows blow; 

You can hear him sling his heavy sledge. 
With measured beat and slow, 

Like a sexton ringing the village bell, 
When the evening sun is low. 

And children coming home from school 
Look in at the open door; 

128 


THE VILLAGE BLACKSMITH 129 

They love to see the flaming forge, 

And hear the bellows roar, 

And catch the burning sparks that fly 
Like chaff from a threshing floor. 

He goes on Sunday to the church, 

And sits among his boys; 

He hears the parson pray and preach, 

He hears his daughter’s voice, 

Singing in the village choir, 

And it makes his heart rejoice. 

It sounds to him like his mother’s voice, 
Singing in Paradise! 

He needs must think of her once more, 
How in the grave she lies ; 

And with his hard, rough hand he wipes 
A tear out of his eyes. 

Toiling — rejoicing — sorrowing, 

Onward through life he goes; 

Each morning sees some task begun, 

Each evening sees it close ; 

Something attempted, something done, 

Has earned a night’s repose. 


130 


THE VILLAGE BLACKSMITH 


Thanks, thanks to thee, my worthy friend, 
For the lesson thou hast taught! 

Thus at the flaming forge of light 
Our fortunes must be wrought; 

Thus on its sounding anvil shaped 
Each burning deed and thought. 

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 

By permission of and special arrangement with Houghton Mifflin 
& Company. 


THE GIRL WHO LIKED TO PLAY 
NURSE 

FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE 

On the twelfth of May, the month of 
flowers, in the year of eighteen hundred 
and twenty, a little English baby was born 
at the Villa Colombaia, just outside Flor- 
ence, the fair city of the Arno. 

Spring had been busy sowing the fields 
with flowers and spreading a carpet of 
tender green beneath the gray olive trees. 
New life was springing up everywhere and 
the baby at the Villa Colombaia lifted her 
face to the light in company with the 
flowers. 

“We will call her Florence,” said her 
mother. So the City of Flowers gave its 
dear name to the little English baby. 

It was not very long before the English 
family went back to their home in Eng- 
land. The first home that Florence knew 
in England was Lea Hall, in Derbyshire, 
but when she was five years old, and her 

131 


132 THE GIRL WHO LIKED TO PLAY NURSE 

sister Frances was six, they went to live in 
a new house called Lea Hurst. Here all 
the rest of her childhood’s summer days 
were spent. 

It was a beautiful home for Mr. Night- 
ingale loved all beautiful things. The win- 
dows looked out over lawns and gardens, 
and a river wound its way like a silver 
thread to the hills beyond. Most charming 
of all was the sight of the two little girls 
in their dainty muslin frocks, Leghorn hats, 
and sandal shoes as they played about 
among the beds of purple pansies and 
crimson wall flowers. 

The girls each had a garden in which 
they planted, weeded, and watered. It was 
Florence, though, who was most fond of 
flowers. It seemed as if the old Italian 
City of Flowers had laid its charm upon 
her as well as given her its name. 

The two little sisters were very fond 
of their dolls, too. But they showed their 
fondness in different ways, and brought up 
their doll families on different plans. Flor- 
ence’s dolls were all delicate and needed 


THE GIRL WHO LIKED TO PLAY NURSE 133 

constant care. They spent most of their 
lives in bed, going through illnesses. They 
were most carefully nursed by their mother, 
who doctored them and fed them dainty 
dishes until they were well again. 

Scarcely were the dolls up and dressed 
again before some new illness sent them 
back to bed, and the nursing began once 
more. 

Frances’ dolls were hardly ever in bed. 
They led lives of adventure. When an 
accident happened and an arm or a leg 
was hurt, it was Florence who set it in 
splints and nursed the invalid back to 
health. 

Florence looked upon all animals as her 
friends, especially those that were unfor- 
tunate. Anything that needed her care 
appealed at once to her tender little heart. 
It was she who welcomed and loved the 
homely little kittens that the stable cat 
hid from less friendly eyes. And the old 
pony that was past work and of no use to 
anyone, knew that his little mistress loved 
him as much as ever. Whenever she passed 


134 THE GIRL WHO' LIKED TO PLAY NURSE 

the paddock, he came trotting over to see 
her. Then he would poke his nose into her 
pockets until he found an apple or a carrot 
that Florence had hidden there for his daily 
game of hide and seek. 

The birds, too, seemed to know and 
trust her, and even the squirrels came 
darting for any nuts she carried with her 
as she walked through the woods. They 
looked upon her as quite one of them- 
selves. 

Only half the year was spent at Lea 
Hurst. In winter and early spring the 
family went to live in their other house, 
Embhy Park, in Hampshire. Here Florence 
learned the pleasure of visiting the village 
people. She was always eager to be the 
messenger when there was a pudding or 
jelly to be sent to some sick person. 

She was riding on her pony over the 
Hampshire Downs one day, after a round 
of visits with the vicar, when they noticed 
that old Roger, the shepherd, was having 
a hard time finding his sheep. He had no 
dog to help him. 



Florence entered the shed and knelt beside the dog. 






































THE GIRL WHO LIKED TO PLAY NURSE 135 

“Where’s your dog?” the vicar asked. 

“The boys have been throwing stones at 
him and broken his leg,” the shepherd said. 

“ Do you mean to say Cap’s leg is 
broken?” Florence asked. She knew the 
name of every dog about the place. “Where 
is he?” she asked. “Can nothing be done 
for him?” 

The shepherd shook his head. 

“No, there’s nothing that can be done,” 
he said. “Cap will never be good for any- 
thing again. I’ve left him lying yonder in 
that shed. I’ll have to put an end to him 
this evening.” 

Florence’s eyes filled with tears. 

“Can’t we go and see him?” she asked. 

The vicar nodded, and they galloped off 
together to the lonely shed. In a moment 
Florence had slid off her pony, entered the 
shed, and was kneeling beside the poor 
dog. She always seemed to understand 
the language of animals. As she patted 
and soothed Cap, he tried to wag his tail 
feebly. He looked up at her, his brown 
eyes full of gratitude and trust. 


136 THE GIRL WHO LIKED TO PLAY NURSE 

The vicar, following after, examined the 
hurt leg, and said that it was not broken 
at all. With careful nursing he thought 
the dog might get well. 

“What shall I do first?” Florence asked. 

“We might try a hot compress,” said 
the vicar. 

The shepherd’s boy was told to light 
a fire of sticks and fill a kettle. Then 
came the question of a cloth and band- 
ages. Looking around, Florence’s quick 
eye caught sight of the shepherd’s clean 
smock hanging behind the door. 

“Mother will give him a new one,” she 
said as she tore the smock into strips. 

Very tenderly then did she doctor the 
swollen leg. In spite of the pain, the dog 
lay quite still, watching her all the time 
with his understanding, grateful eyes. 

A message was sent home to tell 
where Florence was. All that afternoon 
she watched by the side of the suffering 
dog and bathed the leg until the swelling 
went down. 

It was evening before the shepherd 


THE GIRL WHO LIKED TO PLAY NURSE 137 

came, slowly and sorrowfully, for he thought 
he must kill Cap. 

“Dear me, miss,” he exclaimed as the 
dog gave a whine of welcome and tried 
to come to him. “Why, you’ve worked a 
wonder! I never thought to have the old 
dog greet me again.” 

“ He is going to get well now,” Florence 
said. “But you must nurse him carefully, 
and I will show you how to make hot 
compresses.” 

The shepherd was only too glad to do 
all that the little girl directed him. But it 
was the look in Cap’s grateful eyes that 
was all the thanks for which Florence 
cared. 

She was only a child, then, ready to 
help anything that needed her care, flowers, 
or dolls, or an old sheep dog. But she was 
laying the foundation of the great work 
that was to crown her life. 

The look of gratitude in the eyes of the 
dog moved her childish, pitiful heart, but 
how well she learned to know that look 
in the eyes of suffering men ! She gave up 


138 THE GIRL WHO LIKED TO PLAY NURSE 

her life to the great work of nursing. The 
very name of Florence Nightingale meant 
hope and comfort to the wounded soldiers. 
The sight of her face bending over them 
was to them as the face of an angel. 

Amy Steedman. Copyright by Frederick A. Stokes & Co. 


APPLE SEED JOHN 

Poor Johnny was bended well nigh double 
With years of toil, and care, and trouble; 
But bis large old heart still felt the need 
Of doing for others some kindly deed. 

“But what can I do?” old Johnny said: 

“I who work so hard for my daily bread? 
It takes heaps of money to do much good ; 
I am far too poor to do as I would.” 

The old man sat thinking deeply awhile, 
Then over his features gleamed a smile. 
And he clapped his hands in childish glee, 
And said to himself: “There’s a way for 
me!” 

He worked and he worked with might and 
main, 

But no one knew the plan in his brain. 

He took ripe apples in pay for chores, 

And carefully cut from them all the cores. 

He filled a bag full, then wandered away, 
And no man saw him for many a day. 

139 


140 


APPLE SEED JOHN 


With knapsack over his shoulder slung, 
He marched along, and whistled or sung. 

He seemed to roam with no object in view, 
Like one who had nothing on earth to do ; 
But, journeying thus o’er the prairies wide, 
He paused now and then, and his bag untied. 

With pointed cane deep holes he would 
bore, 

And in every hole he placed a core; 

Then covered them well and left them there 
In keeping of sunshine, rain and air. 

Sometimes an Indian of sturdy limb 
Came striding along and walked with him ; 
And he who had food shared with the 
other, 

As if he had met a hungry brother. 

When the Indian saw how the bag was 
filled, 

And looked at the holes the white man 
drilled, 

He thought to himself ’twas a silly plan 
To be planting seed for some future man. 


APPLE SEED JOHN 


141 


Sometimes a log cabin came in view, 

Where Johnny was sure to find jobs to do, 

By which he gained stores of bread and 
meat, 

And welcome rest for his weary feet. 

He had full many a story to tell, 

And goodly hymns that he sang right well ; 

He tossed up the babes, and joined the boys 

In many a game full of fun and noise. 

And he seemed so hearty in word or play, 

Men, women, and boys all urged him to 
stay; 

But he always said : “ I have something to 
do, 

And I must go on to carry it through.” 

The boys, who were sure to follow him 
round, 

Soon found what it was he put in the 
ground ; 

And so, as time passed and he traveled on, 

Everyone called him “ Old Apple Seed 
John.” 


142 


APPLE SEED JOHN 


Whenever he’d used the whole of his store, 
He went into cities and worked for more; 
Then he marched back to the wilds again, 
And planted seed on hill-side and plain. 

In cities, some said the old man was crazy ; 
While others said he was only lazy. 

But he took no notice of gibes and j'eers, 
He knew he was working for future years. 

He knew that trees would soon abound 
Where once a tree could not have been 
found ; 

That a flickering play of light and shade 
Would dance and glimmer along the glade ; 

That blossoming sprays would form fair 
bowers, 

And sprinkle the grass with rosy showers ; 
And the little seeds his hands had spread 
Would become ripe apples when he was 
dead. 


So he kept on traveling far and wide, 
Till his old limbs failed him, and he died. 


APPLE SEED JOHN 


143 


He said at the last : “ ’Tis a comfort to feel 

I’ve done good in the world, though not a 
great deal.” 

Weary travelers journeying west, 

In the shade of his trees find pleasant rest ; 

And they often start, with glad surprise, 

At the rosy fruit that round them lies. 

And if they inquire whence came such 
trees, 

Where not a bough once swayed in the 
breeze, 

The answer still comes, as they travel on: 

“These trees were planted by Apple Seed 
John.” 


LYDIA MARIA CHILD 


THE GIRL WHO WAS A LOVING 
SISTER 

LOUISA M. ALCOTT 

There were four little sisters, almost 
fourscore years ago, in Orchard House in 
old Concord. Anna was nearly ten and 
Louisa just past her eighth birthday. Eliza- 
beth was four, and last of all came the 
baby, Abby May. 

What happy times they must have had, 
we think, wearing the dainty frocks and 
ribbons that all little girls love, and playing 
with a house full of dolls. Did they go to 
parties and have a great deal of company 
at Orchard House? Their father was Amos 
Bronson Alcott about whom a great deal 
has been written, and Orchard House is so 
famous now that no one goes to Concord 
without visiting it. This family of little 
Alcott sisters must have had a wonderful 
girlhood, we feel. 

They were the four happiest sisters 
that ever lived but they were quite poor. 

144 


THE GIRL WHO WAS A LOVING SISTER 145 

Perhaps they might have had more com- 
forts if their father had not believed that 
being poor is a help to happiness. They 
ate plain food and wore simple clothes, 
but they knew where the most juicy wild 
berries and the richest nuts could be found. 
They had few toys that were bought, but 
such a store of home made playthings! 
The little girls had all kinds of rag dolls 
and as many kittens as they wanted. They 
had gingerbread men and a whole toy 
barnyard full of animals that their mother 
cut and baked from cake dough. They 
made up plays of their own, too. Louisa 
wrote stories full of villains and heroes, 
witches, princesses, gallant knights, good 
fairies, gnomes and giants that they could 
act in the attic. 

As the baby, Abby May, grew up into 
a sunny haired little girl with the most 
skilful fingers, she designed and painted 
scenery for their plays. Anna made over 
old clothes from the attic into wardrobes 
for the actors and they filled the attic with 
fun on rainy days. 


146 THE GIRL WHO WAS A LOVING SISTER 

Orchard House was a quaint brown 
home with many windows. It was set in 
the midst of fruit trees and green grass 
with an old fashioned garden at the back. 
Although there was very little to eat some- 
times at the Alcott home, its doors were 
always open to the neighbors or to a 
stranger who was in need of help and 
shelter. Anything that the Alcotts could 
spare was shared. 

If we might only have peeped in one 
of the windows on Christmas Eve ! There 
was a tree that the girls had watched 
being chopped down in the green woods 
of Concord. Anna and Louisa had helped 
to drag it home on their sled with little 
Abby May seated like a snow queen on 
its branches. Standing beside the glowing 
stove on the worn carpet of the living 
room, it was made beautiful with things 
that had not cost any money. Rosy apples 
from the Alcott’s own orchard hung like 
bright red balls among its branches. The 
girls had popped corn and strung the ker- 
nals to make festoons for the tree. The 


THE GIRL WHO WAS A LOVING SISTER 147 

gifts were home made, a penwiper for 
father, a knitted scarf for mother, all the 
work of the sisters’ fingers, and all very 
precious on that account. 

The oldest sister in a family always has 
to be a kind of little mother, and this was 
true with Anna Alcott. Elizabeth was not 
a strong little girl. She was never able to 
help with the work in Orchard House, but 
her goodness and gentle heart filled it with 
sunshine. Little Abby May loved nothing 
so much as to draw pictures all day long. 
She drew and painted very well indeed, but 
she found it hard to remember household 
tasks. Louisa was her father’s birthday 
child, born on Mr. Alcott’s birthday. She 
was loving and fond of the birds and woods 
and flowers, as her father was. She was 
strong willed too. Whatever she started 
to do she finished. 

As Louisa grew up into a tall, dark girl 
with big, far seeing eyes she wanted to do 
something for these three sisters whom she 
loved so dearly. She longed to spare her 
mother the hard work of the home. She 


148 THE GIRL WHO WAS A LOVING SISTER 

wished that she might buy for her father 
the books that he loved but could not 
afford. There were Elizabeth’s doctor’s bills 
to pay and Abby’s paints to be bought. 

If we could have climbed up into the 
Alcott attic one long ago day when Louisa 
was still in her teens, we would have seen 
her at work trying to help her family. She 
was curled up in one of the wide window 
seats with pencils and paper in an old 
tin kitchen beside her. She had a pile of 
apples on the floor at her feet, for she 
intended to work late and she might not 
have time to go downstairs for supper. 
Scrabbles, a rat who lived in the garret 
and was Louisa’s pet and play fellow, 
danced about on the rough boards of the 
floor. Louisa did not notice him, though, 
nor did she stop work until the shadows 
of the trees in the orchard cut off all the 
light. She wrote and wrote, covering many 
pages with her fine penmanship. When she 
had finished she slipped the pages in the 
tin kitchen, for she was keeping her plan a 
secret from the dear family downstairs. 


THE GIRL WHO WAS A LOVING SISTER 149 

We will come back from that long ago 
day with Louisa in the attic now, and open 
our favorite book, Little Women. Every 
girl loves Little Women, and grown people 
love it so much that it was made into a 
play and acted before large audiences all 
over our country. 

Little Women is the story of Meg and 
Jo and Beth and Amy, four loving little 
sisters, who lived with their dear father 
and mother in an old brown house like 
Orchard House in Concord. It tells about 
old Joanna, a torn but precious rag doll, 
and about the fairy tale plays that the 
little sisters wrote and staged and acted in 
the attic. We read in Little Women how 
Meg mothered the family and Jo wrote 
stories that were published and made them 
all comfortable after their poverty. It tells 
us how Beth was the good angel of the 
home and went at last to live with the 
angels. We read how Amy grew up to be 
an artist just as she had wanted to be when 
she was a little girl. Little Women is a 
book about playing and working and loving 


150 THE GIRL WHO WAS A LOVING SISTER 

just as children may play and work and 
love today. The best part of the whole 
book, though, is that it tells us how happy 
poor people may be. 

Who do you suppose gave us Little 
Women? 

The girl that was herself such a loving 
sister gave it to us. We saw her working 
up there in the Orchard House attic in Con- 
cord so many years ago. She was curled 
up in the window with her paper and her 
pile of apples, and only Scrabbles, the rat, 
knew what a beautiful story she was going 
to give us. Louisa Alcott wrote Little 
Women which is the true story of her own 
girlhood and that of her sisters in their 
Concord home. Anna Alcott was Meg and 
Louisa Alcott was Jo, Elizabeth Alcott 
was Beth andAbby was Amy of Little 
Women. The home of these four little 
women with all its fun and sorrow and 
love was Orchard House of over seventy- 
five years ago. 

Louisa Alcott wrote Little Men and 
Jo’s Boys and Eight Cousins and Rose in 


THE GIRL WHO WAS A LOVING SISTER 151 


Bloom, about herself and her family, grown 
up. Two long shelves in the Alcott home 
in Concord are filled with almost thirty 
books that she wrote. These books did 
just what she hoped they would. They 
were bought in hundreds of thousands and 
helped to bring comfort to the Alcott 
household when it was most needed. 

Little Women did more than that, 
though. It is the book that, more than 
any other, tells children what real, good 
fun it is to have to go without things and 
make our own happiness at home. 


THE BOY FROM THE HATTER’S SHOP 


PETER COOPER 

One of the nicest things a boy can do 
is to make a trip to a store and buy a 
new hat or a cap. 

He doesn’t often stop to think, though, 
where the hat came from or how many 
workmen were kept busy putting its parts 
together. It takes a good deal of work to 
make a hat or a cap now. A hundred 
years ago, when men’s and boys’ hats 
were taller and made of richer materials 
than they are now, it was quite a task to 
make one. It was a greater task, too, 
because hats were entirely made by hand 
then. 

How would you like to make a trip, in 
fancy, to a little hatter’s shop in New York 
City one hundred years ago? 

There is just one room, small and 
stifling because the windows are not much 
more than peep holes. There are old 
fashioned benches and chairs, and among 

152 


THE BOY FROM THE HATTER’S SHOP 153 

the five or six apprentices in the hatter’s 
shop, there is a small boy hard at work. 
He is standing by a table at one end of 
the room and he is so little that he can 
just reach the rabbit skins that lie in a pile 
on the center of the table. He pulls one 
rabbit skin at a time toward him and 
begins picking out the hairs very carefully. 
It is a tedious, tiresome piece of work and 
it takes hundreds of rabbits’ hairs to fill 
the bag that hangs at the boy’s side. They 
are to be used in making beaver hats and 
the little boy, whose name is Peter, has 
been pulling them out of the skins ever 
since he can remember. 

There was not an apprentice in Mr. 
Cooper’s hat shop who was as anxious to 
work carefully and well as Mr. Cooper’s 
little boy, Peter. Life for him was made 
up of a little play and a great deal of 
hardship. He helped his mother with the 
washing; there was very little about the 
house that he could not do. But when 
Peter was free be did not join the other 
boys in a game down at the wharf. He 


154 THE BOY FROM THE HATTER’S SHOP 

got out the axe or his jack knife and tried 
to make something. 

We will say good bye to this small 
Peter now and watch him grow up. The 
next time we see him is in the workroom 
of a coachmaker’s shop on Broadway where 
he is working as an apprentice. He is a 
lad now, but his large, long face is just as 
earnest as it was when he was a little 
fellow and he is just as busy. Peter’s work 
for the day is over. It is night and the 
other apprentices are out in the street 
having a good time. Peter has lighted a 
tallow candle and as it flickers and sput- 
ters he bends over a carpenter’s work 
bench. 

What Peter Cooper is trying to make 
is a secret. He is working in his spare 
time on an invention that he knows, if he 
perfects it, will do wonders for the Amer- 
ican people. He has no money, though, to 
buy materials. He saved several hundred 
dollars from his small wages and he 
planned to use this in buying tools and 
materials. Just then he went downtown 


THE BOY FROM THE HATTER’S SHOP 1S5 

to visit his father and mother and he 
found that the hatter’s shop was deeply 
in debt. Peter paid all the debts, but he 
had no money left. 

What does that matter, he says to 
himself, as he saws and planes in the 
candlelight. He has worked hard all his 
life and has been to school only two months 
a winter for three or four years. But he 
can make hats; he has learned the brick 
making trade, and he is a skilled coach 
builder. He is able to use almost any tool 
that is made. He has strength and willing 
hands, and he has a great longing in his 
heart. He wants to do something for other 
boys as poor as he. 

Peter Cooper went right on working 
for fifty years more. He was a street 
peddler for a while; he played a hurdy 
gurdy and he had a small grocery business. 
He experimented with many kinds of mix- 
tures until he was -able to manufacture 
glue and oil and whiting and prepared 
chalk. These began to make him rich. 
Then he manufactured iron and that led 


156 THE BOY FROM THE HATTER’S SHOP 

him into mining and the development of 
mining lands. They were all quite different 
kinds of work but in one respect they were 
all alike for Peter Cooper. Each business 
or trade gave him an opportunity to work 
hard and to work carefully. 

Just about this time two wonderful 
things happened in the United States. A 
locomotive was built and a great cable was 
laid beneath the Atlantic Ocean linking two 
continents by a new and quicker means of 
communication. 

Who do you suppose built the first 
locomotive and laid the first Atlantic cable? 
Why, it was Peter Cooper who began work 
by pulling rabbits’ hairs in his father’s hat 
shop in old New York! 

He found this success very wonderful 
indeed and he was glad of the wealth and 
honor that came with it. There was some- 
thing else, though, that gave Peter Cooper 
his greatest happiness. That was his Union. 
We know it as Cooper Union. 

Peter Cooper built this beautiful edifice 
of brown stone and many stories in height 


THE BOY FROM THE HATTER’S SHOP 157 

in the City of New York so that boys and 
girls and young men and young women 
might have the learning which he missed. 
He spent three-quarters of a million dollars 
for it and it took several years to build 
Cooper Union. As the workmen piled the 
stones and did the other construction work 
on the building, a plain little wagon drawn 
by a steady old horse might be seen coming 
down the street. It was old Mr. Peter 
Cooper’s wagon. He might have had a 
fine coach, for he was one of the most 
famous and richest men in the United 
States, but he always liked to be simple 
in his living. The street was crowded with 
cabs and trucks and express wagons but 
they all drew aside to make way for the 
plain little carriage in which “Uncle Peter” 
sat. He would drive up to his own hitch- 
ing post in front of the Union and get out 
and look at it with a great deal of pride 
and joy. 

Peter Cooper drove to Cooper Union 
every day until he died. He saw thousands 
of young men and women from all parts 


158 THE BOY FROM THE HATTER’S SHOP 

of the country there learning to draw and 
paint and model in clay, learning how to 
erect great buildings and to build railroads 
and bridges. 

Cooper Union has always been one 
of the most helpful schools in the world 
because it teaches how to use the hands 
in making the world more useful and more 
beautiful. The happiest person in the 
Union, though, was “Uncle Peter,” going 
from room to room, and watching boys 
and girls learning the things that he had 
to teach himself between hat making and 
brick making and all the other humble 
tasks that were his. 


A BOY WHO WANTED TO LEARN 

BOOKER T. WASHINGTON 

If anyone had tried some fifty years ago 
to pick out a boy who had the poorest 
chance of becoming a great man, he might 
very well have chosen a little slave on a 
plantation near Hale’s Ford in Virginia. 
Nobody took very much notice of the 
coming of another little black baby. His 
mother did not know the names of the 
months, and soon forgot just when God 
gave the new son to her ; so that when he 
grew to manhood, he chose Easter Sunday 
as a good time to mark as his birthday. 

His home was a one-room cabin on 
a great farm, where he lived with other 
slaves. There were no windows. The floor 
was of dirt, and on this the boy slept, with 
a heap of rags to keep him warm. His only 
garment was a shirt so coarse that until it 
had been worn about six weeks it made 
him feel as if needles were sticking into 
him. When the weather was warm, he 
159 


160 


A BOY WHO WANTED TO LEARN 


much preferred not to wear anything at 
all. Though no one else seemed to care 
for him, his mother loved him dearly; and 
at night she used to bend over him when 
he lay down to sleep and pray that by and 
by she and her boy might be free. 

One day they were all sent for to come 
up to the house where the master lived. 
The little fellow was afraid and clung to 
his mother’s skirts while a man on the 
porch read a paper to them. But when 
the reading was over, all the slaves jumped 
up and down and shouted for joy ; and his 
mother bent low and whispered to him 
that they were free. 

After a while the family moved to 
West Virginia, where there was work for 
them in the coal mines and salt furnaces. 
The boy longed to go to school and learn, 
as he saw other happy children doing. But 
the home was so poor that he had to help 
to buy food and clothing; and every day 
he walked a mile and a half to the coal 
mines with his stepfather, and worked in 
the darkness and dampness, though the 


A BOY WHO WANTED TO LEARN 


161 


mine made him very much afraid. He was 
not discouraged, however, and learned his 
letters on the salt barrels. After a good 
teacher began to help him, he took a book 
into the mine with him, and whenever he 
had a few spare minutes, he tried to read 
by the light of the little lamp that was 
hung in his cap. At last his stepfather told 
him that if he would get up early in the 
morning and work from four until nine 
o’clock, he might go to school for half a 
day. This seemed to him a great chance, 
and he took up his studies with delight. 

Up to this time he had never had a 
last name. “Booker” was what everyone 
called him. At the school he heard the 
teacher calling the boys by two names; 
and when his name was asked, he gave 
the greatest name he knew— Washington. 
So Booker Washington he has always been 
called; and he often laughed and pointed 
to himself as one of the very few boys who 
ever chose their own names. 

When he was twelve years old, he was 
sent to work as a chore boy in a home in 


162 A BOY WHO WANTED TO LEARN 

Malden. Everything 1 about the house had 
to be kept clean and in order, and his 
mistress taught him that he must always 
be honest and always on time. These were 
good lessons for a boy brought up as he 
had been ; and he was glad when he grew 
up that this good woman had made him 
do things, which at the time he did not 
like to do at all, and do them thoroughly. 
Here, too, he never wasted his spare time, 
but kept on with his studies. Often his 
mistress found him reading a book in a 
corner of the kitchen ; and more than once 
she saw a light in his cabin after midnight, 
and had to go out and tell him to stop 
studying and go to bed. 

One day he heard about a great school 
at Hampton, where negro and Indian boys, 
who were poor, could work for their board. 
It was five hundred miles away, and he 
had been able to save very little out of 
the six dollars a month that his mistress 
paid him. But his friends, who were almost 
as poor as he, helped him. Some gave five 
cents and some ten; and at last, though 


A BOY WHO WANTED TO LEARN 163 

he did not have enough money to pay his 
carfare, he started. Part of the way he 
rode. The rest he had to walk, sleeping 
in barns and under bushes, and getting 
whatever he could to eat. 

II 

At last he reached Hampton, ragged 
and dirty, and with only five cents in his 
pocket; so that when the teachers looked 
him over, they were not at all sure that 
he was the kind of boy that ought to stay. 
However, one of them decided to give him 
a chance, and told him to sweep and dust 
one of the large recitation rooms. If Booker 
had done this badly, he would probably 
have been sent away, and his whole after 
life might have been very different. But he 
saw that he was on trial, and made up his 
min d to do the work better than it had 
ever been done before. He swept the room 
three times and dusted the desks four 
times. He took the dirt out of the cracks 
and corners, and wiped off the windows 
and sills. When the teacher came back, 


164 


A BOY WHO WANTED TO LEARN 


she could not find a dusty place anywhere ; 
and looking down into the eager face, she 
said with a smile, “I think we’ll try you 
as a student.” And so his wonderful days 
at Hampton began. 

Here there was much that was new to 
him. He had never before slept in a bed 
with clean white sheets. He had never 
had his meals at regular hours, or eaten 
his food with a tablecloth spread before 
him, or used a napkin. He had never 
learned to use a toothbrush or taken a 
bath in a white tub. He had to rise at 
four, sweep rooms, build fires, and work 
hard every day. But he knew that to 
learn was the way to be happy and good 
and useful ; and he bore his hardships 
without whining, ate his portion of corn 
bread without finding fault with it, and did 
every task just as well as he could. 

By the time that his school days at 
Hampton were over, he had made up his 
mind that what he wanted to do most of 
all was not to make himself rich, or to seek 
his own pleasure, but to help his people, 


A BOY WHO WANTED TO LEARN 


165 


who were living in the little old one-room 
cabins, and who were as poor and ignorant 
as he used to be. So he went back to 
Malden and taught a day school and two 
Sunday schools there for three years. He 
made the boys and girls keep their hands 
and faces clean, comb their hair, and keep 
the buttons on their clothes, and tried in 
every way to cure them of their untidy 
habits and to make them honest and kind 
as well as wise. He did so well that Gen- 
eral Armstrong, the great leader of the 
school at Hampton, sent for him to come 
back and teach the Indian boys; and thus 
the boy, for whom Hampton had done so 
much, had a chance to express his love 
and thanks to the school. 

In 1880 some men in Alabama made up 
their minds to found a school in Tuskegee 
to train teachers for their colored schools. 
When they asked General Armstrong 
whom they should call to take charge of 
the work, he told them that the best man 
he knew was Booker Washington. The 
task was a very hard one, and many men 


166 


A BOY WHO WANTED TO LEARN 


would have chosen to stay at Hampton, 
where they could have more of quiet and 
comfort. But this man loved his people 
more than he loved himself and looked 
only for the place where he could be most 
helpful. He was given charge of the new 
school, and began his work on July 4, 
1881, with an old church for a building 
and a tumble-down shanty, which stood 
near by, for a schoolroom. It was cold 
in winter and hot in summer. The wind 
howled in between the boards, and when 
it rained one of the boys had to hold an 
umbrella over the teacher’s head while she 
read the lesson. 

From this has grown the great school 
at Tuskegee, where more than a thousand 
black boys and girls are trained every year. 
Many friends have given large gifts to it, 
and the black folk have toiled for it and 
helped to make it. But the success of the 
great work and the happiness of thousands 
of lives and homes are due most of all to 
one little slave boy, who wanted to learn, 
who was not afraid to work hard, who 


A BOY WHO WANTED TO LEARN 


167 


loved his people, and who was eager to 
share with them his blessings until all 
should have a fair chance to be wise and 
happy and good. 

HENRY HALL AM TWEEDY. 

Copyright by The Macmillan Co. in “The Way of the Rivers.” 


THE GIRL WHO WORKED HARDEST 
TO LEARN 

HELEN KELLER 

There was great excitement in the 
Southern home in Tuscumbia, Alabama, 
one sunny March day of 1887. Helen felt 
this because she had heard the sound of 
footsteps hurrying to and fro ever since 
morning. She wished that she knew what 
it was all about, but she could not tell. 

The name of the house was Ivy Green 
and Helen knew that it was a pretty home, 
for she had felt of the ivy on the walls and 
the stiff green boxwood hedges. She had 
found the first spring lilies and violets by 
smelling them and she had touched the 
roses that hung from the piazza when they 
were wet with dew in the morning. 

Helen could hardly wait to find out 
what was going to happen at Ivy Green 
but she kept as busy as she could, trying 
to be patient. She helped to fold and put 
away the clothes that had come from the 
168 


GIRL WHO WORKED HARDEST TO LEARN 169 

laundry, sorting her own from the others. 
She hunted for the nest in the long grass 
where the guinea hen had hidden her eggs. 
She spent a part of the day in the kitchen 
with Martha Washington, the little colored 
girl who was her companion. With Mar- 
tha’s help Helen kneaded some dough balls, 
turned the coffee mill and fed the hens 
and turkeys that swarmed over the kitchen 
steps. 

But all this time Helen was eager with 
excitement. At last she went and stood 
on the piazza, touching the leaves and blos- 
soms that the spring had brought and 
lifting up her face to feel the sunshine. 
Suddenly Helen felt that some one was 
coming. She stretched out her hand for 
she thought that it was her mother. Some 
one took it and held Helen close in her 
arms. 

It was indeed a wonderful day in the 
life of little Helen Keller. She was almost 
seven years old and was blind and deaf 
and did not know how to speak. She had 
only her fingers with which to learn but 


170 GIRL WHO WORKED HARDEST TO LEARN 

a teacher, Miss Sullivan, had come to help 
her to be like other children. 

The morning alter Miss Sullivan came 
she led Helen into her room and gave her 
a doll. The little blind children at Perkins 
Institute had sent it to Helen and a blind 
child had dressed it. After Helen had 
played with the doll a while Miss Sullivan 
held her hand and spelled d-o-1-1 in it. 
Such fun as this finger play was! The 
little blind girl was delighted and soon she 
was able to spell d-o-1-1 in the same way 
with her fingers in the palm of her other 
hand. Miss Sullivan put Helen’s new doll 
in the little girl’s lap and helped her to 
touch it as she spelled. It was a new, 
wonderful play. Helen ran downstairs and 
spelled with her fingers for her mother. In 
a few days she could spell pin, hat, cup, and 
some words like sit, stand and walk that she 
could learn through movement. In a few 
weeks Helen knew that everything had a 
name and she wanted to learn all the 
names. 

As soon as Helen could spell a few 


GIRL WHO WORKED HARDEST TO LEARN 171 

words Miss Sullivan gave her slips of card- 
board on which were printed words in 
raised letters. Helen touched these and 
learned them, and then touched the objects 
or carried out the action for which they 
stood. She had a frame in which she could 
fit the cardboard slips and make sentences. 
Then Helen began to read a story book 
printed in raised letters. 

There were other lessons for Helen to 
learn with her fingers and she studied most 
of them out of doors. She would gather 
soft pink peaches and rosy apples in her 
apron and hold them to her cheek while 
Miss Sullivan told her with her fingers of 
their color and how they grew. She felt of 
the bursting cotton balls and touched their 
soft fiber and fuzzy seeds, learning of the 
uses of cotton. She built dams of pebbles, 
made islands and lakes and dug river beds 
on the river bank near her home to learn 
geography. Afterward Miss Sullivan helped 
Helen to make raised maps of clay so that 
she could feel the mountain ridges and 
valleys, and follow with her fingers the 


172 GIRL WHO WORKED HARDEST TO LEARN 

twisting courses of the rivers. Then her 
teacher told Helen in the strange sign 
language that she had learned about our 
great round world, its burning mountains, 
its buried cities and all that is going on in 
it today. 

Sometimes Miss Sullivan and Helen 
bought a lily and set it in a sunny window. 
When the green, pointed buds began to 
unfold, Helen touched them softly, learning 
how a plant lives and grows. She had a 
jar of tadpoles that surprised her by turn- 
ing into frogs. She felt of downy chickens 
and budding fruit trees, the animals in the 
barnyard and the smallest wild flowers out 
in the woods so that she might learn all 
about them. It was not an easy way to 
study, but each day Helen worked harder 
to find out the wonders with which the 
earth is filled. 

Helen was blind and deaf because she 
had been very ill when she was a baby. 
Because she could not hear voices she 
could not talk, but she wanted to speak. 
She liked to feel a cat purr and a dog 


GIRL WHO WORKED HARDEST TO LEARN 173 

bark. She would hold a cricket or a katy- 
did in her small hand, delighted with the 
sounds she could feel them making. She 
could feel, too, very tiny sounds outdoors, 
the silky rustling of long leaves and the 
low sighing of the wind among the corn 
stalks. 

One day the most wonderful thing of 
all happened to this little girl who could 
neither see or hear. Helen learned the 
sound of letters by passing her hand over 
her teacher’s face and feeling the position 
of her tongue and lips when she spoke. 
Then the little deaf girl, who could not 
remember ever having heard a word, spoke. 
Helen was only ten years old when she 
began to learn to talk and it was very, 
very hard for her. It was a long while 
before she could make herself understood, 
but she kept on trying to speak. She 
talked to her toys, to stones, to trees, to 
birds and to dumb animals. How happy 
Helen was when her dog came at her call 
and her pony obeyed her commands! 

Sometimes Miss Sullivan took Helen for 


174 GIRL WHO WORKED HARDEST TO LEARN 

a journey and these were like trips to 
fairyland for the little shut-in girl who was 
trying so hard to learn. She went all the 
long way from Tuscumbia to Boston once 
and took her doll with her. Miss Sullivan 
told her of everything they passed, the 
great cotton fields, the hills and woods, the 
little colored boys who sold popcorn balls 
at the stations and the beautiful Tennessee 
River. In Boston Helen visited the Perkins 
Institute for the Blind and thanked the chil- 
dren for her doll. She went to Plymouth 
on a steamboat and stood on Plymouth 
Rock as Miss Sullivan told her about the 
Pilgrims. She played in the sand which she 
had never touched before, and gathered sea 
shells to carry home and learn about. 

Helen was finding out now all that we 
know so easily through seeing and hearing. 
She began to discover that the world is a 
very happy place and she was able to do 
much that other little girls could. The first 
Christmas after Miss Sullivan came was a 
real Christmas for Helen. 

She and her teacher prepared surprises 


GIRL WHO WORKED HARDEST TO LEARN 175 

for all the members of the family, for 
Martha Washington, the little colored girl, 
and for the children of the neighborhood. 
Helen and Miss Sullivan sat at bed time in 
front of a glowing wood fire and talked 
in the finger language about the happy day 
that was coming. 

On Christmas Eve the school children of 
Tuscumbia had their tree and they invited 
Helen to come and enjoy it with them. 
The Christmas tree stood in the center of 
the schoolroom, brightly lighted, and its 
branches loaded with presents. Helen was 
told that the tree was there, how beautiful 
it was, and that it held a gift for each 
child. Then they let the little blind girl 
take the gifts from the tree and give them 
to the children. She did not make a single 
mistake and it seemed as if she had never 
been so happy before. She hung up her 
stocking at home and fell asleep with a 
new doll and a soft white bear in her 
arms. In the morning a new canary sang a 
Merry Christmas to Helen. She could feel 
his cheery voice ringing out through the air. 


176 GIRL WHO WORKED HARDEST TO LEARN 

It was a new world for Helen. Blind, 
she knew how full of beautiful sights the 
earth is. Deaf, she could feel the earth’s 
smallest, sweetest sounds. Each year she 
learned more until she became greater and 
more talented than many who can see and 
hear. If Helen Keller could learn so much, 
what may we not learn with our eyes and 
our ears to help us? 


THE BOY WHO WAS A WIZARD 

THOMAS ALVA EDISON 

Hardly anyone in the little town of 
Milan, in Ohio, thought that Alva would 
amount to anything. He went to school, 
but only for three months when he could 
not seem to rise above the bottom of his 
class. He was always playing pranks, too ; 
or they seemed pranks to his mother and 
the village boys. 

Any boy in Milan could have told you 
how Alva was trying one of his strange 
experiments in the canal that ran past their 
house and fell in. He was almost drowned 
before he was pulled out. Another time he 
was rescued from a great pile of wheat in 
a grain lift when he had been trying to 
find out how the lift was worked. He set 
fire to a bam once, although he had not 
meant to. All these things made people 
feel that Alva was not like other boys; 
that perhaps he was not so well able to 
take care of himself. Even the school- 


177 


178 


THE BOY WHO WAS A WIZARD 


master thought this. So Alva’s mother 
took him out of school and taught him 
herself at home. 

But no one, not even his mother, really 
knew the little boy. He was dreaming all 
the time that he was not Alva Edison, but 
the genii of the Arabian Nights. What 
other boys did to be mischievous, Alva 
did to try to find out the power of the 
world and how to use it. He kept rows 
and rows of bottles on shelves in the 
cellar, and he filled these with all sorts 
of chemicals with which to experiment. 
When he discovered something in this 
way, he was as pleased as any ordinary 
boy is over winning a game of baseball. 

There were a great many questions that 
Alva wanted answered. He was always 
wondering about things, and no one could 
answer his, why, why? The chemicals in the 
bottles in the cellar cost money, and there 
was not very much money in the Edison 
home. So Alva decided to try to earn 
some money that would help him to answer 
some of his own questions. 


THE BOY WHO WAS A WIZARD 


179 


He raised vegetables for a while and 
he liked the work very much. He felt 
quite like a magician as he buried seeds in 
the ground and then waited for a plant to 
rise from them. This was rather a slow 
way of earning, though, and Alva gave 
it up. 

His next work was selling papers. He 
could read in his newspapers and maga- 
zines what men of science were doing all 
over the world, and he had plenty of time 
for this as he rode to and fro in a train 
from Huron to Detroit where the family 
lived now. He was allowed to use one of 
the vans for storing his precious bottles 
so that he could work with them at odd 
moments. He grew quite happy, and began 
to feel as if he were really going to accom- 
plish something in the world. 

Troublous times came just then. The 
Civil War began, and the whole country 
was in sore straits. Business was poor; 
there was little or no money and Alva 
found it difficult to get any newspapers 
to sell. He had always wondered, though, 


180 


THE BOY WHO WAS A WIZARD 


about the magic that lay behind the print. 
Now he bought a little printing press and 
put it in his van. He printed a newspaper 
of his own that would carry the news the 
nation wanted so much to know. It was 
called The Weekly Herald, and Alva sold 
it for three cents. 

His paper was going well when some- 
thing happened. He was at work in the 
van one day when the train lurched and a 
stick of phosphorous on one of the shelves 
fell to the floor. The boards, in a second, 
were in flames. The train guard was able 
to put out the fire, but he was so angry 
that he struck the boy. It was a cruel 
blow for it left Alva deaf, always, from the 
injury it did to his ear. 

“There isn’t any use trying,” is what 
another boy might have said. But it was 
not even Alva’s thought. He looked about 
for another chance, and it came before he 
expected it. 

There was a little railway station on 
his paper route where Alva often stopped 
to talk with the station agent. It was not 


THE BOY WHO WAS A WIZARD 


181 


a very busy station, and Alva was inter- 
ested in watching the telegraph outfit and 
wondering how it worked. That was what 
he was doing one day when he heard the 
rumble of a swiftly coming train. It would 
pass by without stopping, he knew, but he 
turned to look at it. Then he saw that 
the station master’s little boy had strayed 
out to the track and was on the rails, in 
front of the approaching train. 

Alva did not think of his own danger. 
He dashed out on the track and pulled 
the child back just in time. He barely es- 
caped him self. As it was, the wheel of 
one of the coaches grazed his foot, but he 
put the little fellow in his father’s arms, 
safe. 

The station agent was most anxious 
to do something for Alva, but he was as 
poor as was the lad. He offered, though, 
to teach Alva telegraphy and that really 
pleased the boy more than any gift could 
have. It seemed to unlock the world’s 
wizardry for him. 

That was what it really did. When 


182 


THE BOY WHO WAS A WIZARD 


Alva had learned the secrets of the tele- 
graph board, how to send messages, and 
how to read those that came in, he began 
to be, him self, a wizard. The boy whom 
no one had thought very wise, began to 
be looked upon as one of the world’s 
greatest magicians. 

The wizards of the fairy tales turn 
darkness to light, send messages by the 
wind, and make the unseen speak. All 
this was accomplished by the Ohio boy 
who couldn’t get to the head of his class 
in school. He has given us electricity to 
turn the blackness of night into dazzling 
day. He has circled the earth with tiny 
wires that carry the voices of our friends 
for hundreds of miles to us. He has given 
us a magic box from which we hear the 
most beautiful music, preserved for us, 
from the voices once breathed into it, 
forever. 

Thomas Alva Edison’s boyhood dreams 
have made the Arabian Nights’ tales true. 


GLOSSARY 


Asola - 

- 


- 

- 

- 

- A'-zo-la 

Assisi - 







Bernardino 

- 



- 

- 

- Ber-nar-dee-no 

Canova 







Colombaia 

- 



- 

- 

- Ko-lomb-ai 

Fief - - 

- 



- 


- Feef 

Gessler 

- 



- 


- Gess-ler 

Gubbio 

- 





- Goob'-be-o 

Kopek 

- 





- Ko-pek 

Loopolof - 

- 





- Loo'-po-lof 

Palissy 

- 





- Pal'-Ys-sy 

Perigord 

- 





- Pa'ree-gor 

Perugia 

- 





- Pa-roo'-ja 

Piero - 

- 





- Pe-a-ro 

Pons - 

- 





- Pon 

Romee - 

- 





- Ro-ma 

Rouble - 

- 





- Roo-ble 

Saintes - 

- 





- Sant-ez 

Samovar 

- 





- Sam-o-var 

Valencia 

- 





- Va-len'-she-a 







♦ 





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